Dr R.J.Wootton wrote:
> Have the self-replicating machines of the great Prof
> Penrose fallen out of folk memory, or are they much-quoted
> classics? They were made of plywood, and he supplied the
> necessary energy by shaking them in a tray. I remember him
> demonstrating them to delighted audiences when I was an
> undergraduate in the late 1950s. He was then Professor of
> Eugenics (!) at UCL, in the School of Biometry, Genetics
> and Eugenics headed by JBS Haldane. He did a Scientific
> American article on them, probably about 1960; I don't have
> the reference handy.
Still remmbered! The reference is: L. S. Penrose. ``Self-reproducing
machines.'' Scientific American, Vol. 200, No. 6., pages 105-114, June 1959
In many ways the Penrose (père et fils) replicator had a lot in common with
George Whitesides' self-assembling systems (see
http://www.chem.harvard.edu/faculty/whitesides.html).
Yours
Adrian
http://staff.bath.ac.uk/ensab
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