Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 324 posts

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#291

Post by pfdietz »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #283
pfdietz wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nice. It remains the case that fallout will have caused only a small increase in the national background cancer rate. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/r...

Yes, only a “small” significant increase to those nearby. And we’re not talking only about fallout but manipulation in the lab. It’s specifically your brand of risk downplaying that led to all these early deaths. Things are much safer today because educated folks understand the risks and prepare for them.

What makes you think von Neumann got any exposure in labs? He was a mathematician, not any sort of experimentalist.

The idea that his cancer came from fallout is just moralizing nonsense, the silly logical error of thinking that the universe operates in a way that punishes badness.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#292

Post by williamDafoe »

hi41 wrote: post #211

I am curious to know. Why does the Jewish community have a disproportionately large number of extremely intelligent people as evidenced by the number of Nobel laureates and other great intellectuals?

Look up azkenazi Jews on Wikipedia, the average IQ of that subgroup is 108 with similar variance, apparently. But they also suffer from haemophilia and other genetic inbreeding disorders...

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#293

Post by williamDafoe »

ironyman wrote: post #164

I've recently been engrossed by the question of how geniuses and highly intelligent people think. There's bits and pieces of information online. What I'd really like to see, though, is (a) geniuses describe their thought process and (b) a smart person voicing is interior monologue while attacking a problem. 1) Do you know of any information like this? Link? 2) Otherwise: do you think in a way that's different (better…

The most brilliant guy I ever knew was a founder of the field of computational geometry. He has probably co-authored 500 papers by now. he was a paper engine and would hold court with 10 or 15 people and they would all figure out how to prove the theorems in a paper. His students said that when solving problems he just never seem to to go in the wrong direction ever at all! At age 29 - already a full professor - he got the NSF Wasserman award - top researcher - all fields of science. His dad was a farmer in Austria. He was the first computer scientist to ever get the Wasserman award. Herbert Edelsbruner.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#295

Post by dmazin »

dogsgobork wrote: post #103
dmazin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to think we are no longer producing people with colossal intellect. They are probably now collaborators on a large project, since that is what math and science have become. Plus we haven’t had enough time to make myths about the recent times. Of course the 20th century was incredible for physics, but we don’t know yet what will make the recent years special. We may, for example, in 80 years wonder…

It's also possible that the greatest minds of our time aren't engaged in furthering our understanding of the universe, but instead devising more efficient ways of displaying internet advertising or faster stock trading algorithms.

That’s a great point.

The silver lining is that many of these companies publicly release their research. i.e. Rob Pike and Ken Thompson may be working on advertising, but we can still benefit from Golang.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#296

Post by dmazin »

criddell wrote: post #62
dmazin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to think we are no longer producing people with colossal intellect. They are probably now collaborators on a large project, since that is what math and science have become. Plus we haven’t had enough time to make myths about the recent times. Of course the 20th century was incredible for physics, but we don’t know yet what will make the recent years special. We may, for example, in 80 years wonder…

I have no idea about the state of modern mathematics but I wouldn't have guessed that the idea of a lone mathematician has passed. What are the big projects in mathematics?

You’re right, math is a little bit less collaborative than other endeavors still. Lone mathematicians still make huge contributions, e.g. Perelman.

But for example, one could call the endeavor of classifying all the finite simple groups a big collaborative project.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#297

Post by tim333 »

williamDafoe wrote: post #294
tim333 wrote: post #241

He was also the originator of the term singularity in the accelerating progress of technology sense. Interesting to see how that one pans out.

Yeah as I understand it that ain't going to happen for a thousand years, minimum ...

I'd guess quicker but time will tell.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#298

Post by artur_makly »

“Johnny built, at the Institute for Advanced Study, an experimental elec- tronic calculator, popularly known as the joniac, which eventually became the pilot model for similar machines all over the country. Some of the basic prin- ciples developed in the joniac are used even today in the fastest and most modern calculators. To design the machine, Johnny and his co-workers tried to imitate some of the known operations of the live brain. This is the aspect which led him to study neurology, to seek out men in the fields of neurology and psychiatry, to attend many meetings on these subjects, and, eventu- ally, to give lectures to such groups on the possibilities of copying an extremely simplified model of the living brain for man-made machines. ”

From his book - “The Computer and The Brain”

https://ia800800.us.archive.org/4/items/TheComputerAndTheBra...

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#300

Post by nl »

dumbwork wrote: post #240
daseiner1 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Interestingly you refute the idea that intelligence determines someone’s “worth,” Well, this is true: intelligence does _not_ determine someone's worth. Ultimately how intelligent you are is irrelevant providing that you _can_ provide value. >Still rats in the race, just rats with a slightly higher score on a particular dimension. Yes, but surrounded by other rats with a slightly higher score on a particular dimensi…

abstract reasoning us not reserved for the "intelligent", it's open to anyone who is of average intelligence at least.

Interestingly this implies that the average programmer does have higher than average intelligence (as measured by IQ scores).

The reasoning goes like this:

- At least average intelligence is required for abstract reasoning (and programming) - This means the the distribution of intelligence for programmers has a minimum around that of the average value - This means that the mean and median must both be above average.

Post reply on HN