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can be traced back to the Von Neumann machine, a theoretical machine capable of reproducing itself. The device John von Neumann proposed woud follow precisely detailed instructions to fashion a copy of itself. The concept was then improved by von Neumann's friend Stanislaw Ulam, also a mathematician; Ulam suggested that the machine be built on paper, as a collection of cells on a grid. The idea intrigued von Neumann,

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