The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#221

Post by arethuza » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 12:06 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #219

arethuza wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is any doubt that a "preemptive" nuclear first strike by the US would have morally and legally been regarded as genocide. The last time we had a debate on HN on this topic a number of people seemed to think it would have been a good idea - which I found genuinely disturbing. Hopefully I was just being trolled.

On the other hand, there is still no universal agreement on the morality of the wartime bombing campaigns that lead to high numbers of civilian casualties.

I'm always reminded of the lines from Daniel Ellsberg in the describing his experiences in the early 1960s:

"The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts.

I remember what I thought when I held the single sheet with the graph on it. I thought, this piece of paper should not exist. It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project that had ever existed. There should be nothing on Earth, nothing real, that it referred to."

https://apjjf.org/-Daniel-Ellsberg/3222/article.html

Edit: The staggering thing about the estimate of 600 million dead was that this was known to be an underestimate as the US didn't take the thermal effects of nuclear weapons into account during planning as they were regarded as too unpredictable. Actual 'real' estimates would be over a billion dead....

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#222

Post by read_if_gay_ » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #218

MrDresden wrote: post #209

He was beyond a brilliant person, of that is no doubt. And not in anyway trying to take away from that fact, reading the following excerpt from the article..; "[..] von Neumann both worked alongside and collaborated with some of the foremost figures of twentieth century science. He went to high school with Eugene Wigner, collaborated with Hermann Weyl at ETH, attended lectures by Albert Einstein in Berlin, worked und…

A lot of those particularly accomplished people he interacted with specifically pointed him out as exceptional. For example, from this article about his eidetic memory: "One of his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation. He could also transla…

Another:

> “There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. von Neumann didn’t say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann” — George Pólya

The nature vs. nurture argument has its merits in general, but sometimes nature just produces a complete freak. Being surrounded by geniuses probably isn't that valuable when you're head and shoulders above even them.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#223

Post by bidirectional » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #158

person_of_color wrote: post #111

Lets speculate this is entirely nurture. How do you get as smart as von Neumann? Zettelkasten?

Have a lot of money, be privileged to work with lots of very smart people, and spend a lot of time learning from the sound of this article. I'm always super-suspicious when I hear someone's brilliance described in anecdotes. Some people are better at promoting themselves than others. So perhaps judge him only by his published work and not his reputation.

By the age of six Von Neumann could divide eight digit numbers mentally and speak in Ancient Greek. If it is nurture, it is something accidental which happens in early childhood, not something you work on and learn about later in life.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#224

Post by adverbly » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #139

adverbly wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple more fun examples: all([]) == True any([]) == False

This is a bit intuitive: all: no false elements any: not all false elements

Plenty of things are intuitive if you have the right mental model backing it. I'd wager some folks thing of all/any as "at least one True"/"Everything is true", which makes it a trickier think.

Mental models often get spicy with empty/"corner" cases. This isn't quite the same, but a lot of kids struggle with division as sharing rather than division as measuring, which makes division by a number less than 1 conceptually difficult. http://langfordmath.com/ECEMath/Multiplication/DivModels.htm...

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#225

Post by jonstewart » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

aap_ wrote: post #147

croes wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ENIAC the worlds first computer? What about Z3 by Konrad Zuse? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

There was no first computer. The further you go back the less it becomes a computer, the further you go forward the less it becomes a first. I can really recommend the book "ENIAC in Action" on this matter and of course on the ENIAC generally.

It’s rather like the development of the automobile. The first computers—EDVAC, ENIAC, Z3, ABC—all had idiosyncrasies that reflect on them being transitional technologies.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#226

Post by bobcostas55 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #218

MrDresden wrote: post #209

He was beyond a brilliant person, of that is no doubt. And not in anyway trying to take away from that fact, reading the following excerpt from the article..; "[..] von Neumann both worked alongside and collaborated with some of the foremost figures of twentieth century science. He went to high school with Eugene Wigner, collaborated with Hermann Weyl at ETH, attended lectures by Albert Einstein in Berlin, worked und…

A lot of those particularly accomplished people he interacted with specifically pointed him out as exceptional. For example, from this article about his eidetic memory: "One of his remarkable abilities was his power of absolute recall. As far as I could tell, von Neumann was able on once reading a book or article to quote it back verbatim; moreover, he could do it years later without hesitation. He could also transla…

Fermi to one of his PhD students:

"You know how much faster I am in thinking than you are? That's how much faster von Neumann is compared to me."

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#227

Post by pitspotter » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

zukzuk wrote: post #216

pitspotter wrote: post #214

As easy as it is to admire intelligence it's really motivation which is key, which is the admirable thing about people . VN could have accomplished far more if he'd been less concerned with prestige, academies, spy stuff, and so on. If he'd opted to isolate himself a bit more. Like his colleague Godel, or like Grothendieck. Then there would have been many more theorems bearing his name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

By most accounts Gödel lived an anxious, unhappy life. He died, basically, from paranoia. Not to say that von Neumann lived a happy life — he sounds like a bit of an asshole — but I wonder whether Gödel would have traded his achievements for less isolation and a less tortured existence?

Yes, I wonder too. Yet isolation does seem to be a component of creative achievement.

Feynman would be another example like Von Neumann. Off-the-charts intelligence and admired for his intelligence, his honesty and sense of adventure. But limited creative output due apparently to his pursuit of sex and intrigue.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#228

Post by newbie578 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

Reading stories like this, makes me certain that one of the biggest breakthroughs the human race will achieve is when we cure cancer.

Our progress will start increasing even more.

Imagine what our world would look like if the average person lived to over 90 and was still mentally sharp.

Imagine an additional 40 years of Neumann, 20 years of Einstein, even from the more modern times also, Steve Jobs or my personal favorite Paul Allen.

Paul Allen is one of my personal heroes, and I cannot help but drop a tear whenever I think of how the techonology world would look like if Paul Allen didn't get cancer and had to retire from Microsoft before the age of 40..

If anyone is interested, I implore you to read Paul Allen's autobiography, The Idea Man. One of the best books I have ever read, you are amazed at what kind of man Paul Allen was.

One of my favorite stories is when Allen and Gates made their first BASIC and had to go pitch it to Albuquerque to get their first customer. Gates did not dare leave Harvard yet, so they sent Allen alone to go deal with it, and while Allen was on the plane, he realized that while they had developed the BASIC, they didn't make the bootstrap loader. So Allen minutes before landing, grabbed a steno pad and started writing the code in machine language, all from the head...

And it worked... I mean what can say to that, except feel insignificant?

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#229

Post by Ceezy » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

< The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann There is a lot mathematicians out there and these kind of statements are not helping. Von Neumann work was actually concentrated around a small set of ideas (the study of measure/probability). Most of his work is related to that. Even the Von Neumann algebras were in his interpretation, representation measures. You can also argue that he was pushing further already existing ideas(way further...). In contrast Einstein was creating brand new theory. Von Neumann was a great mathematician and for sure genius. But he was not by any means unparalleled.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann (2019)

#230

Post by kaba0 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #204

hintymad wrote: post #3

I often use von Neumann's quote, "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.", to console myself when I have to read a math book multiple times to really understand something. The quote also has truth in it. I had no problem accepting that 0! = 1 only because I learnt that fact early in school. However, I struggled quite a bit to accept that span({}) = {0}, even though it is not…

For the last two years I've been learning Neumann's native language, Hungarian. It's a very difficult language for an English speaker to acquire (and vice-versa), but this quote could be adapted perfectly to how I feel learning Hungarian, "Young man, in Hungarian you don't understand things. You just get used to them.". I wonder if Neumann had a similar experience early on while learning English, and it shaped his vi…

It’s quite rare for someone to learn Hungarian, what a surprise! (I’m a native speaker)

Feel free to ask me anything you have trouble with. In the reverse direction, double negative is something that I sometimes have to pay attention to, and I don’t know about another language that employs it.