[ExI] [tt] Computronium life on Rudy Rucker's blog

[BillK]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> Rudy and others cited Charlie Stross as coiner of "computronium". Is that
> correct? I know the term was used a lot on the extropian list in the mid to
> late '90s, as was "bogosity" and other entertaining neologisms. Charlie was
> there briefly, then, of course. But I suspect the term is probably older
> than that. Any suggestions?
>


Wheeee!   It's a search challenge!  Fire up Google!


The Science Fiction Dictionary credits Eugene Leitl.
<http://foxhugh.wordpress.com/list-of-lists/science-fiction-dictionary/>

Anders Sandberg also credits Eugene
<http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Words/c.html#COMPUTRONIUM>

There was also much discussion of Jupiter brains and Robert Bradbury's
Matrioshka brains.
<http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/>

Drexler also discussed nanotechnology and molecular computing.

There is a paper published in 'Science' 1991
Link to paper: <http://leitl.org/amato.pdf>
"Computronium" is a hypothetical substance in which each processing
cell of a CA is reduced to atomic scale and arranged in a crystal
lattice.
See:
Ivan Amato. Speculating in precious computronium: a new computer
embodies an architecture that - to its creators - mimics the structure
and dynamics of physical reality. (Norman Margolus' and Tommaso
Toffoli's Cellular Automaton Machine 8, or CAM-8). Science, August 23
1991, v253, n5022, p856-7.

-----------------------

I'd ask Eugene if he was the culprit.

BillK