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

1–10 of 132 posts

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#2

Post by 1cvmask »

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 formula is in statistical mechanises but second and more important, as nobody knows what entropy is, whenever you use the term you will always be at an advantage!

http://www.spatialcomplexity.info/what-von-neumann-said-to-s...

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#6

Post by ArnoVW »

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 recently bumped into this Arte documentary about his life. I believe in the first 5 minutes they list his achievements and what he was like as a kid.

I don't think you would have been disappointed :-)

Documentary (with English subtitles ) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RuwnywSpl40

Documentary (in French) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QQui90ZGobo

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#7

Post by gjkood »

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...

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#8

Post by rg111 »

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 wife twice, and when discouraged by the wife, he let it go as a perfect gentleman.

Despite this, Feynman remains one of my most revered icons and his picture still hangs on my wall.

I don't overlook what he did or try to find some naive justification. I know he was this way and that does not make his mind less fascinating to me.

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#9

Post by rg111 »

jimmyed wrote: post #3

Ah, the genius of being at the right time among the right people, and having an all-too-helpful assistant...

> 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 that he was brought to tears.

> By the age of 19, von Neumann had published two major mathematical papers, the second of which gave the modern definition of ordinal numbers, which superseded Georg Cantor's definition.

Yeah right.

Sure his privilege helped. But a lot of people all through the world had that amount of privilege or more.

How many von Neumans are there?

Re: A new biography of John von Neumann

#10

Post by rsiqueira »

ArnoVW wrote: post #6
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 recently bumped into this Arte documentary about his life. I believe in the first 5 minutes they list his achievements and what he was like as a kid. I don't think you would have been disappointed :-) Documentary (with English subtitles ) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RuwnywSpl40 Documentary (in French) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QQui90ZGobo

Thanks. The video description states that "If, one day, an artificial consciousness supplants human intelligence, it will be largely due to him." (Si, un jour, une conscience artificielle supplante l’intelligence humaine, ce sera en grande partie de son fait.). In fact, his last work is an unfinished book "The Computer and the Brain". Now is the best time for us to continue this work.
Post reply on HN