The legend of John von Neumann (1973) • Hacker News Board

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#11

Post by jerf » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

Radim wrote: post #6

jnazario wrote: post #2

John von Neumann was an absolutely amazing human and scientist. truly a genius, a polymath, and evidently quite an interesting party guest. the book Prisoner's Dilemma is ostensibly about game theory but it's set within the context of von Neumann's life. really quite fascinating, one of my favorite people to study. http://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/d...

Not to rain on the parade, but such glorification of "heroes" is... just awkward. Wasn't there an article on Herbert's Dune on the HN front page, just yesterday? In particular, von Neumann was an "amazing human" as long as you don't mind him advising the military to bomb Russia out of the map, preemptively. What a wonderfully humane move. "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today a…

"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?"

As a mathematician, it's probably worth pointing out the use of the implication. "If you are planning on bombing them tomorrow at 5pm then why wait?" is not equivalent to "Russia should be bombed now."

And indeed, of all the logical fallacies I see on the Internet this is one of the ones that tends to bother me personally the most. "A -> B" is not! equivalent to "B". If I meant B, I would have simply said B. I suspect the same is true of von Neumann.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#12

Post by jerf » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 4:49 PM UTC

irremediable wrote: post #10

mau wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please add some sources for the claim about Feynman? A quick search on the web "feynman abuse" didn't gave me relevant results.

The famous quote is "His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he attacked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture." That was from an FBI file ( https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi... ) on Feynman. I don't know anything about the "paid aborti…

"It's tricky stuff... Feynman was (is?) a hero of mine, and I struggle to put this stuff in context."

Heros have feet of clay. The correct move is to adjust your concept of "hero" to include this.

The alternative, that you will only declare someone a "hero" if they are perfect in every way yields a definition of "hero" with 0 instances, which is a useless definition.

If Feynmann was abusive to his wife to some degree, well, plenty of people are abusive to their wifes without also creating physics breakthroughs. It's OK to honor his ability to do that without having to think of him as perfect.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#13

Post by irremediable » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 4:57 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #4

I wonder if a person like this came along today, whether they would be allowed to have the same type of impact in the variety of different ways that John von Neumann did. Whether he was advancing economic theory or telling the military the most efficient altitude to detonate a bomb, it was all the same basic skill set. He was just a crazy smart and logical guy and he applied that to every field that he could. I can't…

To be honest with you, I think this problem is less about open-mindedness and more about the increased depth in which we've studied most fields. There's been a huge increase in the number of academics in these fields, and a lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.

There still are some polymaths, but it's hard for them to make as fundamental a contribution in fields that have already existed for a long(ish) time.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#14

Post by acheron » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #7

slg wrote: post #4

I wonder if a person like this came along today, whether they would be allowed to have the same type of impact in the variety of different ways that John von Neumann did. Whether he was advancing economic theory or telling the military the most efficient altitude to detonate a bomb, it was all the same basic skill set. He was just a crazy smart and logical guy and he applied that to every field that he could. I can't…

I think in many ways, in terms of exploring scientific and engineering realms, we're more conservative now. Personally, I'm doing a PhD in computer science, and I find it incredibly frustrating. Publishing papers is all about minute incremental improvements, and you absolutely must have numerical results to prove that you beat the competition. You can't publish negative results either, your work is considered worthle…

Not disagreeing with you necessarily, but the 70s were hardly an economic boom time in the USA either.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#15

Post by lutusp » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:06 PM UTC

irremediable wrote: post #13

slg wrote: post #4

I wonder if a person like this came along today, whether they would be allowed to have the same type of impact in the variety of different ways that John von Neumann did. Whether he was advancing economic theory or telling the military the most efficient altitude to detonate a bomb, it was all the same basic skill set. He was just a crazy smart and logical guy and he applied that to every field that he could. I can't…

To be honest with you, I think this problem is less about open-mindedness and more about the increased depth in which we've studied most fields. There's been a huge increase in the number of academics in these fields, and a lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. There still are some polymaths, but it's hard for them to make as fundamental a contribution in fields that have already existed for a long(is…

> There still are some polymaths, but it's hard for them to make as fundamental a contribution in fields that have already existed for a long(ish) time.

Yes, but it misses the fact that polymaths historically have solved that problem by creating new fields. Richard P. Feynman, as one example, lectured on nanomaterials and nanodevices decades before the technology existed to make his ideas practical. Einstein shaped relativity theory about four decades before there was any way to confirm (in detail) its theses or apply it to practical problems.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#16

Post by Cyph0n » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:06 PM UTC

oafitupa wrote: post #5

More than once I was studying something in completely unrelated fields (eg: quantum mechanics, biology, game theory), when suddenly von Neumann (who I first knew for his contributions to computer science) is mentioned and I'm like "What? This guy again?". After the third time I went to read his biography because it couldn't be the same person. But yeah, it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

Yeah, the same happened to me. I believe it was the thermonuclear bomb and the Von Neumann architecture. I thought that it couldn't be the same guy - two entirely unrelated fields - but it was. The guy was, in my opinion at least, the last true polymath.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#17

Post by amiramir » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

tachyonbeam wrote: post #7

slg wrote: post #4

I wonder if a person like this came along today, whether they would be allowed to have the same type of impact in the variety of different ways that John von Neumann did. Whether he was advancing economic theory or telling the military the most efficient altitude to detonate a bomb, it was all the same basic skill set. He was just a crazy smart and logical guy and he applied that to every field that he could. I can't…

I think in many ways, in terms of exploring scientific and engineering realms, we're more conservative now. Personally, I'm doing a PhD in computer science, and I find it incredibly frustrating. Publishing papers is all about minute incremental improvements, and you absolutely must have numerical results to prove that you beat the competition. You can't publish negative results either, your work is considered worthle…

Lisp was defined in the 50s and implemented in the 60s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#18

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:29 PM UTC

lutusp wrote: post #15

irremediable wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest with you, I think this problem is less about open-mindedness and more about the increased depth in which we've studied most fields. There's been a huge increase in the number of academics in these fields, and a lot of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. There still are some polymaths, but it's hard for them to make as fundamental a contribution in fields that have already existed for a long(is…

> There still are some polymaths, but it's hard for them to make as fundamental a contribution in fields that have already existed for a long(ish) time. Yes, but it misses the fact that polymaths historically have solved that problem by creating new fields. Richard P. Feynman, as one example, lectured on nanomaterials and nanodevices decades before the technology existed to make his ideas practical. Einstein shaped r…

Fields today are too well defined for that.

Just try making a grad work by joining knowledge from two separated field - nobody ever understands what you say. You lose most of your time in the basics, and people are mostly unable to build over what you created.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#19

Post by mililani » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:30 PM UTC

I think it's sad that at the end of his life, he was really fearful of death. So fearful, in fact, that he sought refuge in religion, but supposedly, it didn't bring much comfort.

I always think of that when I ponder about my own struggles with life, the human condition, and mortality. I really don't want to be that fearful of my own impending death if I get something like cancer.

Re: The legend of John von Neumann (1973)

#20

Post by mikeash » Fri, Aug 22, 2014, 5:32 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #11

Radim wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to rain on the parade, but such glorification of "heroes" is... just awkward. Wasn't there an article on Herbert's Dune on the HN front page, just yesterday? In particular, von Neumann was an "amazing human" as long as you don't mind him advising the military to bomb Russia out of the map, preemptively. What a wonderfully humane move. "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today a…

"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?" As a mathematician, it's probably worth pointing out the use of the implication. " If you are planning on bombing them tomorrow at 5pm then why wait?" is not equivalent to "Russia should be bombed now." And indeed, of all the logical fallacies I see on the Internet this is one of the ones that tends…

I agree with your sentiment overall, but I don't think it applies to von Neumann. The sentence right before that quote is: "With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when." It seems generally accepted that he was in favor of destroying the Soviets before they gained the ability to retaliate, although I will admit that I can't find any more direct quotes about it.

It's hardly surprising either. During those few years when the US had the ability to devastate the USSR but not vice versa, it was a fairly common opinion. In addition to all the common reasons for advocating this, a Hungarian would also be influenced by the rather brutal domination of his homeland by the Soviets in that time.