A look at the concept of Self-Replicating Machines, Universal Assemblers, von Neumann Probes, Grey Goo, and Berserkers. While we will discuss the basic concept and some on-Earth applications like Medical Nanotechnology our focus will be on space exploration and colonization aspects.
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Self-assembling robots are referred to as von Neumann machines after the man responsible for originally proposing them, John von Neumann. Since then, the potential of these machines and their ability to proliferate throughout known space has made galactic colonization seem not only possible but perhaps inevitable.
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