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Autocatalytic Set
An autocatalytic set is a collection of entities, each of which can be created catalytically by other entities within the set, such that as a whole, the set is able to catalyze its own production. In this way the set ''as a whole'' is said to be autocatalytic. Autocatalytic sets were originally and most concretely defined in terms of molecular entities, but have more recently been metaphorically extended to the study of systems in sociology, ecology, and economics. Autocatalytic sets also have the ability to replicate themselves if they are split apart into two physically separated spaces. Computer models illustrate that split autocatalytic sets will reproduce all of the reactions of the original set in each half, much like cellular mitosis. In effect, using the principles of autocatalysis, a small metabolism can replicate itself with very little high level organization. This property is why autocatalysis is a contender as the foundational mechanism for complex evolution. Pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catalysis
Catalysis () is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quickly, very small amounts of catalyst often suffice; mixing, surface area, and temperature are important factors in reaction rate. Catalysts generally react with one or more reactants to form intermediates that subsequently give the final reaction product, in the process of regenerating the catalyst. The rate increase occurs because the catalyst allows the reaction to occur by an alternative mechanism which may be much faster than the noncatalyzed mechanism. However the noncatalyzed mechanism does remain possible, so that the total rate (catalyzed plus noncatalyzed) can only increase in the presence of the catalyst and never decrease. Catalysis may be classified as either homogeneous, whose components are dispersed in the same phase (usual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stuart Kauffman
Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biology, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Calgary. He is currently emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and affiliate faculty at the Institute for Systems Biology. He has a number of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship and a American Society for Cybernetics#Wiener and McCulloch awards, Wiener Medal. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as discussed in his book ''Origins of Order'' (1993). In 1967 and 1969 he used random Boolean networks to investigate generic self-organizing properties of gene regulatory networks, proposing that cell types ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemoton
The term chemoton (short for 'chemical automaton') refers to an abstract model for the fundamental unit of life introduced by Hungarian theoretical biologist Tibor Gánti. Gánti conceived the basic idea in 1952 and formulated the concept in 1971 in his book ''The Principles of Life'' (originally written in Hungarian, and translated to English only in 2003). He suggested that the chemoton was the original ancestor of all organisms. The basic assumption of the model is that life should fundamentally and essentially have three properties: metabolism, self-replication, and a bilipid membrane. The metabolic and replication functions together form an autocatalytic subsystem necessary for the basic functions of life, and a membrane encloses this subsystem to separate it from the surrounding environment. Therefore, any system having such properties may be regarded as alive, and it will be subjected to natural selection and contain a self-sustaining cellular information. Some consider th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bootstrapping
In general, bootstrapping usually refers to a self-starting process that is supposed to continue or grow without external input. Many analytical techniques are often called bootstrap methods in reference to their self-starting or self-supporting implementation, such as bootstrapping (statistics), bootstrapping (finance), or bootstrapping (linguistics). Etymology Tall boots may have a tab, loop or handle at the top known as a bootstrap, allowing one to use fingers or a boot hook tool to help pull the boots on. The saying "to " was already in use during the 19th century as an example of an impossible task. The idiom dates at least to 1834, when it appeared in the ''Workingman's Advocate'': "It is conjectured that Mr. Murphee will now be enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots."Jan FreemanBootstraps and Baron Munchausen '' Boston.com'', January 27, 2009 In 1860 it appeared in a comment about philosophy of mind: "The a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-hosting (compilers)
In computer programming, self-hosting is the use of a program as part of the toolchain or operating system that produces new versions of that same program—for example, a compiler that can compile its own source code. Self-hosting software is commonplace on personal computers and larger systems. Other programs that are typically self-hosting include kernels, assemblers, command-line interpreters and revision control software. Operating systems An operating system is self-hosted when the toolchain to build the operating system runs on that same operating system. For example, Windows can be built on a computer running Windows. Before a system can become self-hosted, another system is needed to develop it until it reaches a stage where self-hosting is possible. When developing for a new computer or operating system, a system to run the development software is needed, but development software used to write and build the operating system is also necessary. This is called a boots ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bootstrapping (compilers)
In computer science, bootstrapping is the technique for producing a Self-hosting (compilers), self-compiling compiler – that is, a compiler (or assembly language#Assembler, assembler) written in the source programming language that it intends to compile. An initial core version of the compiler (the ''bootstrap compiler'') is generated in a different language (which could be assembly language); successive expanded versions of the compiler are developed using this minimal subset of the language. The problem of compiling a self-compiling compiler has been called the Chicken or the egg, chicken-or-egg problem in compiler design, and bootstrapping is a solution to this problem. Bootstrapping is a fairly common practice when Creation of a Programming Language, creating a programming language. Many compilers for many programming languages are bootstrapped, including compilers for ALGOL, BASIC, C (programming language), C, Common Lisp, D (programming language), D, Eiffel (programming lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-replication
Self-replication is any behavior of a dynamical system that yields construction of an identical or similar copy of itself. Biological cells, given suitable environments, reproduce by cell division. During cell division, DNA is replicated and can be transmitted to offspring during reproduction. Biological viruses can replicate, but only by commandeering the reproductive machinery of cells through a process of infection. Harmful prion proteins can replicate by converting normal proteins into rogue forms. Computer viruses reproduce using the hardware and software already present on computers. Self-replication in robotics has been an area of research and a subject of interest in science fiction. Any self-replicating mechanism which does not make a perfect copy (mutation) will experience genetic variation and will create variants of itself. These variants will be subject to natural selection, since some will be better at surviving in their current environment than others and will o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Von Neumann
John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, integrating Basic research, pure and Applied science#Applied research, applied sciences and making major contributions to many fields, including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. He was a pioneer in building the mathematical framework of quantum physics, in the development of functional analysis, and in game theory, introducing or codifying concepts including Cellular automaton, cellular automata, the Von Neumann universal constructor, universal constructor and the Computer, digital computer. His analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA. During World War II, von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project. He developed the mathematical models behind the explosive lense ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Chemistry
An artificial chemistryW. Banzhaf and L. YamamotoArtificial Chemistries MIT Press, 2015. P. DittrichArtificial chemistry (AC)In A. R. Meyers (ed.), Computational Complexity: Theory, Techniques, and Applications, pp. 185-203, Springer, 2012.P. Dittrich, J. Ziegler, and W. Banzhaf.Artificial chemistries — A review Artificial Life, 7(3):225–275, 2001. is a chemical-like system that usually consists of objects, called molecules, that interact according to rules resembling chemical reaction rules. Artificial chemistries are created and studied in order to understand fundamental properties of chemical systems, including Abiogenesis, prebiotic evolution, as well as for developing Chemical computer, chemical computing systems. Artificial chemistry is a field within computer science wherein chemical reactions—often biochemical ones—are computer-simulated, yielding insights on Molecular evolution, evolution, self-assembly, and other biochemical phenomena. The field does not use actua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymer
A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compound (chemistry), compounds, produces unique physical property, physical properties including toughness, high rubber elasticity, elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form Amorphous solid, amorphous and crystallization of polymers, semicrystalline structures rath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closure (mathematics)
In mathematics, a subset of a given set (mathematics), set is closed under an Operation (mathematics), operation on the larger set if performing that operation on members of the subset always produces a member of that subset. For example, the natural numbers are closed under addition, but not under subtraction: is not a natural number, although both 1 and 2 are. Similarly, a subset is said to be closed under a ''collection'' of operations if it is closed under each of the operations individually. The closure of a subset is the result of a closure operator applied to the subset. The ''closure'' of a subset under some operations is the smallest superset that is closed under these operations. It is often called the ''span'' (for example linear span) or the ''generated set''. Definitions Let be a set (mathematics), set equipped with one or several methods for producing elements of from other elements of .Operation (mathematics), Operations and (partial function, partial) multivar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
