Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its odd...as someone interested but not fully into the sciences I see his name pop up everywhere.
He was really brilliant, made contributions all over the place in the math/physics/tech field, and had a sort of wild and quirky personality that people love telling stories about. A funny quote about him from a Edward “a guy with multiple equations named after him” Teller: > Edward Teller observed "von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I somet…
John Von Neumann once said to Felix Smith: "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them." This was a response to Smith's fear about the method of characteristics.
It took me a while to fully grasp what he meant, but after diving into Mathematics and Physics for a while, I now hold it as one of the capital T truths of learning.