"'You, your joys and your sorrows, your

memories and your ambitions, your sense of

personal identity and free will, are in fact no
more than the behavior of a vast assembly of
nerve cells and their associated molecules."

-Francis Crick

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

"If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be

destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next
generations of creatures, what statement would contain the
most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic
hypothesis (or the atomic fact or whatever you wish to call it)
that all things are made of atoms little particles that
move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other
when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon
being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you
will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the
world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied"
-Richard P. Feynman

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

"For the real amazement, if you wish to be amazed, is this

process. You start out as a single cell derived from the
coupling of a sperm and egg; this divides in two, then four,
then eight and so on, and at a certain stage there emerges a
single cell which has as all its progeny the human brain. The
mere existence of such a cell should be one of the great
astonishments of the earth. People ought to be walking around
all day, all through their waking hours calling to each other in
endless wonderment, talking of nothing except that cell."

-Lewis Thomas

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

If you can't explain it to a high school student you probably

don't understand it."
-Richard P. Feynman
"If I could explain it to you, it wouldn't have been worthy of a
Nobel Prize."

-Richard P. Feynman

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

The best thing you can do for the environment is kill yourself

-Fred Loucks

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

"I say that everything bar nothing, being a possibility, we are

placing our bets right now on the wrong tables, exploring
regions of reality where our senses are not reliably sensitive,
when there are obvious things needing our attention right now,
where our senses are reliable. Let's look our for long-term
comets and straying asteroids. Let's go to Mars. Let's do
biochemistry. Let's think about what kinds of senses people
have and how they can use them to their advantage. Let's not
spend our time and resources thinking about things that are so
little or so large that all they really do for us is puff us up and
make us feel like gods. We are mammals, and we have not
exhausted the annoying little problems of being mammals. "
-Kary Mullis

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and
express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when
you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in
numbers, your knowledge is a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;
it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely,
in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science."

-Lord Kelvin

"Light, strong, cheap...

-Pick two."

-Keith Bontrager

MechanoEvolution
Bradley Layton

Assistant Professor

Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics

Drexel University
Philadelphia, PA USA

February April 27, 2007

OUTLINE
BRADLEY LAYTON HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
MECHANOEVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS
MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS
FEEDING OURSELVES w/ ENERGY AND INFORMATION
THREE WAYS OUT

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
BRADLEY LAYTON HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
- Indiana
- MIT
- Michigan
- Drexel MechanoEvolution Class 2005, 2006

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

SEYMOUR INDIANA, SLIM CALLIS, RICK SCHULEY, GARY

CHRISTOPHER, RICHARD SCHULEY

The word of the day

Why dont you comb your hair
Michigan Institute of Trucking...

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MIT
Elzbieta Ettinger (ELIZABETH CHODAKOWSKA, The T)
Delbrck, M. (1986), Mind
From Matter? An Essay on
Evolutionary Epistemology
Nobel Laureate-led course
Elzbieta Ettinger

Head of the Charles 1993

Hunger
On the T:
Regardless of what you do youll always have to write...

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

University of Michigan
Pulling Nerves

max

Fmax

Force 2
(N)

40%

1
0

5%

50

100

unstrained
sciatic
nerve

10%
150
time(s)

Frelax

20%
200

250

300

strained
sciatic
nerve
Figure 3

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTION

Simple weekly take-home quizzes on the upcoming weeks lecture will be given
and will count for 50% of your grade.
A final report summarizing a topic of your choice from the syllabus will count for
30% of your grade. The length of the paper should be between 3,000 and 10,000
words. The paper will be graded on the basis of clarity, organization and originality.
This course is writing intensive and you are required to meet with WITS at
least twice during the term for writing support. If you have any questions about
the role of writing in learning, please see our web page
(www.drexel.edu/provost/writing) or contact: Pol Montgomery,
witmanager@gmail.com. A mid-term version of your project is due in the sixth class
meeting, on May 12th and the final project is due June 12th, or earlier if you are
graduating. You should meet with the writing advisor between the fourth and fifth
weeks and again between the seventh and eighth weeks. Additional critical notes
about your writing assignment: Your writing should include at least the following:

You must include some type of mathematical model of the artifact,

phenomena, trait, or idea you are discussing.

You must have at least ten valid citations from either journal literature or
textbooks. Web references are allowed, but will not be included in the list of
ten.

You must extrapolate your discussion into the distant past and into the distant
future.

You must include comparisons to biology if your paper is primarily

technological and comparisons to technology if your paper is primarily
Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTION

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTION Spring 2006 Student topics

Evolution of love
Evolution of information
Evolution of human intelligence
The evolution of warfare and weaponry
The evolution of flight
Innovations of the piano
Nitrogen and human interaction
Intelligence outside the brain
Evolution of fuel delivery to internal combustion engines
Evolution of computing
Evolutionary aspects of germline engineering
The evolution of sonar navigation
The heart and its replacement

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTION
TERM PROJECT: THE EVOLUTIONOF WEAPONRY
Abstract:
Evolution is based on natural selection. Nowhere is natural selection more apparent and dominant
than on a battlefield. Weapons are objects designed by human beings to overcome their innate
physical weaknesses in the realm of combat with other species and groups of human beings.
Since the dawn of mankind, humans have been using weapons to carve out their ascendancy on
other humans and animals. This paper aims at examining the role played by certain key weapons
through the history of human civilization and how they proved to be the deciding factor for survival of
certain cultures and civilization in various cases.
In this paper, I aim to quantify and evaluate the evolution in design; conception and manufacturing
process for certain key weapons. I will try to analyze the ascendancy of various designs for individual
weapons and how one design dominated and ultimately became the pre-eminent weapons of their
era.
Given the huge variety of weapons developed by man since the Stone Age, I will confine my study to
certain key weapons and eras. I aim to study the evolution of hand held weapons such as the bow,
the lance, the axe and the sword etc and how they dictated the way wars were fought and won. I will
also try to analyze certain platforms on which these weapons were employed such as the chariot,
Armor, heavy cavalry and the phalanx and so on.
The scope of this paper covers the evolution of weaponry from the Stone Age to the dawn of the
gunpowder era. The evolution of gunpowder based weapons is not covered since that would require
a separate study on its own.

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
BRADLEY LAYTON HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
MECHANOEVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS
MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS
FEEDING OURSELVES w/ ENERGY AND INFORMATION
THREE WAYS OUT

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTION WHAT IT IS
MECHANOEVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS
EVOLUTION: Successful passage of information from the
past to the future
SPECIES: A discrete unit capable of sharing information
with the sole purpose of persisting into the future (not
necessarily in the same form, but in an uninterrupted
lineage)
TECHNOLOGY REPLICATION: Machine selection is
driven by human utility
MACHINES AS PROSTHETICS: Machines that improve
the likelihood of human DNA persistence survive as well
MATERIAL CONTINUITY: Biology passes actual physical
materials (DNA) in an unbroken lineage. Machines do not
do this yet without human intervention.

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
EVOLUTION:
- Successful passage of information from the past to the
future
- Favors simplicity (virus), but also occasionally rewards
complexity (human)
- Seems to favor efficiency (high reproduction rate / energy
throughput ratio) but also rewards inefficiency (high casualty
cost to protect species members)
- Seems to encourage modeling (navigation systems, sensory
systems, decision systems, alternative genetic pathways,
Newtonian mechanics) but also rewards ignorance
- Becomes increasingly energetically expensive to maintain
low entropy locally, the higher on the information food chain*
one becomes, making many members vulnerable (humans only)
*Shrodinger

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

BIO VS. TECHNO

FUNCTION

BIO

TECHNO

information

DNA

BLUEPRINT

entropy
resistance

MEMBRANE

MATERIAL

energy source
ladder pushing

SUN
KILL / EAT

COMBUSTION
WAR

ladder pulling

REPRODUCTION

BUSINESS
MERGER

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MOOREs LAW of MechanoEvolution

12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

organism complexity

10y parts in a machine

10

12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

0 x1 2
10 years ago

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MACHINE TYPES
TYPE I: low energy, entropy limited, slow evolution
hammer, microscope, telescope, wheelbarrow,
eyeglasses, bicycle, table
TYPE II: high energy, entropy spewing, rapid evolution
computer, car, airplane, MRI machine, air filter,
lawnmower, dishwasher, cell phone, brain implants, PDA
TYPE III: high energy, entropy spewing, self replicating
artificial plasmids??, self-reproducing robots,
TYPE IV: high energy, entropy dogpile, bio techno integration
Kreyszigs GNR, nanorobots, Terminator

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
BRADLEY LAYTON HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
MECHANOEVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS

FEEDING OURSELVES w/ ENERGY AND INFORMATION

THREE WAYS OUT

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS
Richard Feynman (1918-1988): Plenty of Room at the Bottom
Arthur C. Clark (1917-), Futurist, predicts space elevator
Richard Dawkins (1941-): Evolutionary Biologist
Jared Diamond (1937-): Anthropologist
Nicolas Lonard Sadi Carnot (1796-1832): Thermodynamacist
Claude Shannon (1916-2001): Information Theory
Erwin Schrdinger (1887-1961): Life Eats Chemical Information
John Avery: Information Theory and Biology
Hubert Yockey: Information Theory and Evolution
Antonella Vannini: Syntropy, Info from Future
Bradley Edwards: Space Elevator
Rusty Schweickart: Gravity Tractor
Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity, silicon immortality

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Richard Feynman

The only two engineers who
contributed anything to
science were Carnot and
Shannon
Quiet, we are observing
something holy when he first
saw the images from an early
atomic force microscope
Theres plenty of room at the bottom, 1957

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Arthur C. Clarke

Over thirty Sci-fi novels

between 1951 and present

A space elevator: 1960s

2001: 1964
2010: 1982

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Richard Dawkins

Also by Dawkins:
The Selfish Gene, (1976)
The God Delusion, (2007)
Continuous web between all
currently living organisms.
Cousins all are we.
The Ancestors Tale (2004)
Richard Dawkins

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Jared Diamond

Also by Diamond:
Guns, Germs and Steel (1997)
Collapse (2005)
Metabolic budgeting for
reproductive organs, muscles,
etc.
The Third Chimpanzee, 1992
Jared Diamond

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Carnot
Maximum mechanical work accomplishable is a function
of the gradient or discrepancy between two thermal states

S k B ln
dS
0
dt

kB: Boltzmann's constant

S: entropy
W: number of microstates
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~huskey/images/carnot_cycle.jpg

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Claude Shannon

what is the total number of states available to a system?

Information may only be passed from

one entity to another if a sufficient
energy gradient exists.
if the energy gradients available to transmit
information are depleted, how do we persist
into the future? My argument is that aw we
feed our machines energy, we are
increasing entropy and noise in Shannons
equation

S
C BLog2 1
N

B: bandwidth
C: channels information carrying capacity
N: noise
S: signal

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Erwin Schrdinger

What is Life? is a non-fiction book on
science for the lay reader written by
physicist Erwin Schrdinger (
ISBN 0521427088). Francis Crick cited
What is Life? as the best theoretical
description, before the actual discovery of
DNA, of how genetic storage would work.
In the book, Schrdinger introduced the
idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that
contained genetic information in its
configuration of covalent chemical bonds.
This idea both stimulated enthusiasm for
discovering the genetic molecule and
could be seen (in retrospect) as having
been a well-reasoned theoretical
prediction of what biologists should have
been looking for during their search for
the genetic material.

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: John Avery

Avery

"The phenomenon of life,

including its origin and
evolution, against the
background of
thermodynamics, has its
paradox of resolution in
the information content of
the Gibbs free energy
that enters the biosphere
from outside sources."

Information Theory
and Biology, 2003

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Hubert Yockey

Hubert Yockey

DNA contains
information that is
responsible for
maintaining life in its
entropically unlikely
state
Information Theory,
Evolution and the
Origin of LIfe

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Antonella Vannini

all physical and chemical phenomena, which are
determined by causes placed in the past, are governed by
the principle of entropy, while all those phenomena which
are attracted towards causes which are placed in the
future (attractors), are governed by a principle
which is symmetrical to entropy and which Fantappi
named syntropy.

Antonella Vannini

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: ???
Why keep a Nobel laureate around? (e.g. MRI inventor, etc)
Who cares about quarks and quasars?
Could it be that what a laureate knows will hold the key to human immortality in one of
the Three Ways Out? Syntropic information from the future, aside, could the ability to
model and thus predict the future be a weak form of what Vannini proposes?

What is the value of human intelligence, if not a self-fulfilling

prophecy of actual immortality?
Machines, information, and the information stored on machines
has allowed us to live longer than we already might have. Will
this trend continue?

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
BRADLEY LAYTON HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
MECHANOEVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS
MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS
FEEDING OURSELVES w/ ENERGY AND

INFORMATION

THREE WAYS OUT

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium
will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum
value at equilibrium.
Rudolf Clausius:

dS
0
dt

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

s,
e
in s
h
c tic
a
m the
,
e
if ros
l
n np
o
N ma
e
f
i
hu
L

nc
lu
di
ng

wi

th

2
d
S
e
r
0
tu
2
e
f
i
a
l
dt
n
ut
o
it h
w
e
2
tur
d
S
a
n
0

lif
e,
i
i th

We know from the second law that dS/dt is

positive, but what about the
acceleration of
entropy?

na
tu
re

entropy

hu
m
an
s

The Big Picture of MechanoEvolution

d 2S
0
2
dt
d 2S
0
2
life dt

tems
s
y
s
g
n
livi

dt 2

living systems,
d 2S
humans included dt 2 0

As we humans attempt to make

ourselves increasingly anomalous (or
entropically unlikely to exist), we do so at the
expense of accelerating the second law by sending
more entropy into the environment than would
time
happen in a world where we did not exist.

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

OUTLINE
BRADLEY LAYTON HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
MECHANOEVOLUTION: WHAT IT IS
MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS
FEEDING OURSELVES w/ ENERGY AND INFORMATION

THREE WAYS OUT

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

Three Ways out of living at the top of the

Maintenance of Status Quo
NIH: Info and techno will kill cancer (safest bet?)
BRADLEY EDWARDS: Space Elevator (long shot?)
RUSTY SCHWEICKART: Gravity Tractor (long shot?)
Transcendence of Biology
RAY KURZWEIL: Silicon immortality (difficult to predict)
Spirituality? Prayer will take you to immortality You will
live in heaven forever.
Jerry Falwell (longest shot?)
Pope Benedict (longest shot?)
Dahli Lamma (long, but more practical?)

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Bradley Edwards

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Rusty Schweickart

My current primary interest is the subject of
Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs. Theyre actually
part of a more general group, the NEOs or Near
Earth Objects, which also includes comets.
My initial interest in NEOs was the role that
they played, over geologic time, in defining the
Earths environment and in shaping the
evolution and development of life. The history of
asteroidal and cometary impacts on the Earth,
and indeed all solar system bodies, is most
evident when looking at the pockmarked
surface of the moon. However, it is generally
understood that the cratering evident there is no
different from what it would be on other inner
solar system bodies, but for the mitigating
effects of atmospheres, weather and erosion.

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

MECHANOEVOLUTIONISTS: Ray Kurzweil

Human
transcendence of
biology

many technologists speak of

what a great time it is to be
alive. I disagree. We are on a
bubble between certain death
and possible immortality. But
what will be the quality of this
immortality? Corporeal?
Extracorporeal? Digital? -BEL

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi

In the meantime What do we do as engineers?

syntropic engineering?
green rockets?
brain-machine interface?
personal genome sequencing?
GATTACA future?
towards full machine integration?
away from full machine integration?

Brad Layton,Drexel Universi