'Eureka machine' puts scientists in the shade by working out laws of nature (Ian Sample)

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  The machine, which took only a few hours to come up with Newton's laws of motion, marks a turning point in the way science is done

  Ian Sample -- Guardian

  April 3, 2009 -- Scientists have created a "Eureka machine" that can work out the laws of nature by observing the world around it -- a development that could dramatically speed up the discovery of new scientific truths.

  The machine took only hours to come up with the basic laws of motion, a task that occupied Sir Isaac Newton for years after he was inspired by an apple falling from a tree.

  Scientists at Cornell University in New York have already pointed the machine at baffling problems in biology and plan to use it to tackle questions in cosmology and social behaviour.

  The work marks a turning point in the way science is done. Eureka moments, which supposedly began in Archimedes' bath more than 2,000 years ago, might soon be happening not in the minds of geniuses, but through the warm hum of electronic circuitry.

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