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A new biography of John von Neumann

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Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#51

Post by sudosysgen »

fighterpilot wrote: post #45
sudosysgen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ramanujan learnt calculus at the age of 8 and was able to rapidly factor large numbers by the age of 6? Come on now. Ramanujan was still doing arithmetic by the age of 10. Unarguably Ramanujan was held back as his mathematical progress very strongly, and was not too far above that of his peers until he attended High School. And the worst is that Ramanujan himself was incredibly privileged compared to the Indian avera…

This was one of the world's foremost mathematicians, an unprecedented genius who was born into relatively poor circumstances (by Western standards and by modern standards) and who was completely self-made. There's footage of his very modest family home, so if you're going to try to claim he's somehow "privileged" above and beyond an extremely poor person in the US today, that would be laughable. It's true he wasn't a…

It's not really arguable that without his early advantage Von Neumann would not have been able to achieve what he did. Something can be the product of many things, as I'm sure you've learnt in elementary school.

As far as Ramanujan, it's not arguable either that if he had been recognized early and given proper opportunities, he would have been even more prolific and have made even greater contributions. It took him 10 years for his genius to be recognized locally! And that was as a Brahmin to an urban family, imagine how hard it would have been if he was a Vaishiya born to farmers - he might have never been recognized, and we would have lost his contributions.

If you believe that without being 100% self-made you're crap, that's your point of view, not mine.

As for your edit, extreme intelligence is not really correlated to income. In fact, once you leave the median by a standard deviation, there is almost no impact anymore, and even less when you start controlling for social factors. What is moreso correlated is low intelligence and low income. Descendance is a much, much stronger impact.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#52

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

It’s not controversial during WWII, the pinnacle of human conflict. The war effort was a goal of almost everyone active. The nuclear race was on and many had to flee Europe. Even in normal circumstances, culturally people just didn’t care as much about human life back then.

Criticizing that from the comfortable perspective of today or even halfway to the sixties, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Also being smart apparently doesn’t help much in predicting the future.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#53

Post by fighterpilot »

sudosysgen wrote: post #51
fighterpilot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was one of the world's foremost mathematicians, an unprecedented genius who was born into relatively poor circumstances (by Western standards and by modern standards) and who was completely self-made. There's footage of his very modest family home, so if you're going to try to claim he's somehow "privileged" above and beyond an extremely poor person in the US today, that would be laughable. It's true he wasn't a…

It's not really arguable that without his early advantage Von Neumann would not have been able to achieve what he did. Something can be the product of many things, as I'm sure you've learnt in elementary school. As far as Ramanujan, it's not arguable either that if he had been recognized early and given proper opportunities, he would have been even more prolific and have made even greater contributions. It took him 1…

If you think that a very poor person can rise to a Von Neumann calibre genius, then we have no disagreement. I agree with you that having successful parents can only help the situation.

  "As for your edit, extreme intelligence is not really correlated to income."
Ok, the marginal correlation breaks down at the extremes. But it's still the case that intelligence and income are correlated, so smarter kids are more likely from higher income parents.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#54

Post by sillysaurusx »

sudosysgen wrote: post #47
sillysaurusx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I already said, I know nothing about Von Neumann's history. You'll have to fill me in before I can answer that question, since you didn't really say what happened. My criticism had a source which clearly explained what he did and why it had a negative impact. You may want to do the same thing, or I think no one will be impressed with your claim that Neumann personally was the decisive factor in killing a bunch of…

He ended up not being the decisive factor, but as the above said, he advocated for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union, and was already part of the nuclear decision-making process - he was invited to participate in the decision for which cities to strike in Japan but was ultimately overruled because he suggested to hit target with no military importance and high concentrations of civilians. He thought (very wr…

> He thought (very wrongly) that coexistence with the Soviets was impossible and that they had to be eliminated as soon as possible.

Jeez. To drop all jokes, this guy is a lunatic. I'm not sure why people aren't pointing to this as a decisive criticism, since no amount of genius can excuse the idea that civilians need to be attacked or that populations can't coexist and need to be exterminated.

This is the first I've heard of any of this. My "coziness" with the military industrial complex would be to help design weapons using AI. I'm simply fine with that. I wouldn't be advocating for the extermination of a population! That's not military-industrial coziness, that's psychopathy.

The whole point of joining the military industrial complex is to advocate the opposite of what is represented here. That's the only way that real change can be made. Focus on military targets, not civilian populations. Remind people that although the goal is victory, the war will end one day (i.e. coexistence is never impossible). And so on.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#55

Post by CheezeIt »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #54
sudosysgen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ended up not being the decisive factor, but as the above said, he advocated for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union, and was already part of the nuclear decision-making process - he was invited to participate in the decision for which cities to strike in Japan but was ultimately overruled because he suggested to hit target with no military importance and high concentrations of civilians. He thought (very wr…

> He thought (very wrongly) that coexistence with the Soviets was impossible and that they had to be eliminated as soon as possible. Jeez. To drop all jokes, this guy is a lunatic. I'm not sure why people aren't pointing to this as a decisive criticism, since no amount of genius can excuse the idea that civilians need to be attacked or that populations can't coexist and need to be exterminated. This is the first I've…

Do you think Lincoln was a lunatic?

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#56

Post by WalterBright »

rg111 wrote: post #8
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

I used to think this way once. But not any more. Some people might do or were something that I won't like. I have learned to not let that influence me in way, and be comfortably ambivalent. I especially felt bad after I came to know that Richard Feynman slept with many of his friends' wives and tried to sleep with even more of them. He burnt a lot of bridges this way. One Physicist had told me that Feynman hit on his…

> Richard Feynman slept with many of his friends' wives and tried to sleep with even more of them.

If you're going to indict people for having immoral sex, you'll have to indict probably 90%. If you include trying to have immoral sex, how many would pass your test?

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#57

Post by sillysaurusx »

CheezeIt wrote: post #55
sillysaurusx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He thought (very wrongly) that coexistence with the Soviets was impossible and that they had to be eliminated as soon as possible. Jeez. To drop all jokes, this guy is a lunatic. I'm not sure why people aren't pointing to this as a decisive criticism, since no amount of genius can excuse the idea that civilians need to be attacked or that populations can't coexist and need to be exterminated. This is the first I've…

Do you think Lincoln was a lunatic?

I think Lincoln didn't have access to an arsenal that could end humanity if used in the wrong way, so I don't know if the comparison is warranted.

In general, if someone is trying to exterminate a population, then I believe that they fall under the lunatic umbrella, and that the umbrella should come down like a Venus fly trap and gobble all of them up. On balance, if we did this to every such person throughout history, then history may have fared better. There are zero populations of humans that need an exterminator (at least, an exterminator of humans).

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#58

Post by CheezeIt »

sudosysgen wrote: post #13
rg111 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Von Neumann was a child prodigy. When he was six years old, he could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. > By the age of eight, von Neumann was familiar with differential and integral calculus > At the age of 15, he began to study advanced calculus under the renowned analyst Gábor Szegő. On their first meeting, Szegő was so astounded with the boy's mathematical talent tha…

Really? A lot of people all throughout the world have had people outside the school system to teach them integer factorization, Ancient greek, and integral calculus as soon as they could? In the real world 99% of parents don't have the time to teach their child anything beyond how to speak and walk and answer their questions. 90%+ of parent's don't even remember how to efficiently factor integers or any math beyond a…

> In the real world 99% of parents don't have the time to teach their child anything beyond how to speak and walk and answer their questions.

Yeah, they’re too busy coaching their kids’ sports teams.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#59

Post by melling »

gjkood wrote: post #7

One of the most interesting non-fiction books I have read is Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". It talks about how the majority of the brains behind the Manhattan Project came from one school in Budapest, Hungary called the 'Minta School'. John von Neumann being one of those geniuses. [1] The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes https://www.amazon.com/Making-of-Atomic-Bomb-audiobook/dp/B0...

Have this book on my shelf waiting to be read. It’s frequently mentioned.

The author also has a book about the hydrogen bomb too:

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Sun-Making-Hydrogen-Bomb/dp/0684...

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#60

Post by chillwaves »

CheezeIt wrote: post #55
sillysaurusx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He thought (very wrongly) that coexistence with the Soviets was impossible and that they had to be eliminated as soon as possible. Jeez. To drop all jokes, this guy is a lunatic. I'm not sure why people aren't pointing to this as a decisive criticism, since no amount of genius can excuse the idea that civilians need to be attacked or that populations can't coexist and need to be exterminated. This is the first I've…

Do you think Lincoln was a lunatic?

What makes Lincoln a lunatic?

It's not sporting to only present bait as your argument. Just go ahead and outline what you are trying to say.

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