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

A new biography of John von Neumann

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 132 posts

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#31

Post by yuuu »

sudosysgen wrote: post #26
yuuu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? That everyone who is born into a position of privilege should be shit on, no matter their contribution to society?

I don't see how I'm being derogatory. It's a simple matter of fact that Neumann, being human and not some sort of Ubermensch, greatly benefitted from the best possible environment and education which unarguably contributed to his genius.

You're just stating obvious truths. The context makes it clear that you're attempting to diminish his accomplishments because he was born into privilege. I think they're still impressive, no matter his background. Not every discussion of a historical person needs to turn into a battle for equity.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#33

Post by sudosysgen »

yuuu wrote: post #31
sudosysgen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how I'm being derogatory. It's a simple matter of fact that Neumann, being human and not some sort of Ubermensch, greatly benefitted from the best possible environment and education which unarguably contributed to his genius.

You're just stating obvious truths. The context makes it clear that you're attempting to diminish his accomplishments because he was born into privilege. I think they're still impressive, no matter his background. Not every discussion of a historical person needs to turn into a battle for equity.

How many more Von Neumanns would we have if more people had a similar environment?

Beyond that, yes he was incredibly accomplished, very prolific, and supremely intelligent, but it is important to remember that he was still human and not some kind of transcendant being outside of earthly considerations.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#34

Post by reddog »

Rijek33 wrote: post #5

Sometimes I have the nagging feeling that everyone I idolize would leave me disappointed if I knew them personally. The further back a person is in history the more mythical he becomes

Let me see what I can do...

Early in the Cold War -- while the US had a nuclear monopoly -- Von Neumann was a strong proponent of an all-out, surprise first strike against the USSR by the US. "With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when. If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#36

Post by n4r9 »

raincom wrote: post #29
1cvmask wrote: post #2

The alien rat pack of STEM: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) - My favorite interaction is of von Neumann with Shannon regarding the coining of entropy: What von Neumann Said to Shannon When Shannon first derived his famous formula for information, he asked von Neumann what he should call it and von Neumann replied “You should call it entropy for two reasons: first because that is what the for…

When one uses an existing word, it carries a lot of epistemic and ontological baggage, thereby causing trouble to those who are new to the domain. That’s why scientists go for a linguistic reform: invent a new word during a conceptual or scientific revolution. That’s how the word “Oxygen” replaced the old “Phlogiston”.

When defining statistical entropy in his Cambridge lecture course on Coding and Cryptography, Thomas Korner adds the following footnote:

"It is unwise for the beginner and may or may not be fruitless for the expert to seek a link with entropy in physics."

https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~twk/Shan.pdf

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#37

Post by sillysaurusx »

photochemsyn wrote: post #24

John von Neumann was certainly involved in a lot of scientific discoveries, but from the review this looks more like a hagiography with a goal of rehabilitating the reputation of an incredibly gifted scientist/mathematician whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. 'John von Neumann, the theorist of mutual assured destruction', is how many still view his record. John von N…

> whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day.

Why is it controversial? I know nothing of Von Neumann, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing. "Coziness" could mean a lot of things, but personally even if Von Neumann was taking the military industrial complex out on a date every Tuesday, I wouldn't see a problem with it.

Is the implication that the military was influencing his integrity as a scientist?

The bigger criticism of Von Neumann is that he set back quantum mechanics for a few decades: https://twitter.com/orzelc/status/1446414513465696256

EDIT: There's a shocking comment further downthread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28811713

I retract my claim that the bigger criticism was his treatment of QM. The bigger criticism is that Von Neumann was a lunatic – I try not to call names, but advocating the extermination of a population is the dealbreaker threshold of niceness for me.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#38

Post by sudosysgen »

photochemsyn wrote: post #24

John von Neumann was certainly involved in a lot of scientific discoveries, but from the review this looks more like a hagiography with a goal of rehabilitating the reputation of an incredibly gifted scientist/mathematician whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. 'John von Neumann, the theorist of mutual assured destruction', is how many still view his record. John von N…

Indeed. Von Neumann was an incredibly prolific scientist, and definitely one of the greatest geniuses in history, but that doesn't mean that he was always justified or right - he was still human, and had biases, and made mistakes. His work was still built upon by others who managed to gain understanding of the subject beyond what Neumann did, though certainly much more slowly, and he himself built upon the works of others. He was definitely a class or five above anyone that is likely reading this and probably even more above my own, but he was still a human.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#39

Post by sudosysgen »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #37
photochemsyn wrote: post #24

John von Neumann was certainly involved in a lot of scientific discoveries, but from the review this looks more like a hagiography with a goal of rehabilitating the reputation of an incredibly gifted scientist/mathematician whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. 'John von Neumann, the theorist of mutual assured destruction', is how many still view his record. John von N…

> whose coziness with the military-industrial complex remains controversial to this day. Why is it controversial? I know nothing of Von Neumann, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing. "Coziness" could mean a lot of things, but personally even if Von Neumann was taking the military industrial complex out on a date every Tuesday, I wouldn't see a problem with it. Is the implication that the military was influencing his…

Do you think that enthusiastically egging on the nuclear holocaust of tens of million of people for ultimately no good reason (and that's the best case scenario of his proposal, it could have been even worse as he seriously underestimated the Soviet Union) is not a bad thing?

Had he managed to convince the president, he would have been one of the people with the worst impact on humanity (and science incidentally) of all history, perhaps even dooming us all.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#40

Post by yuuu »

sudosysgen wrote: post #33
yuuu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just stating obvious truths. The context makes it clear that you're attempting to diminish his accomplishments because he was born into privilege. I think they're still impressive, no matter his background. Not every discussion of a historical person needs to turn into a battle for equity.

How many more Von Neumanns would we have if more people had a similar environment? Beyond that, yes he was incredibly accomplished, very prolific, and supremely intelligent, but it is important to remember that he was still human and not some kind of transcendant being outside of earthly considerations.

I don't see anyone in this comment thread implying that he's inhuman or a supreme being. It seems like you may be projecting the insecurities of your own background into the discussion. I'm occasionally envious of people with great achievements who had a "privileged" background, but it's certainly not the first thing I point out when their names are brought up.
Post reply on HN