
The legend of John von Neumann (1973) - tjaerv
http://stepanov.lk.net/mnemo/legende.html?hn
======
slg
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 think of any modern equivalent person who
has had a similar impact in the number of disciplines that von Neumann did.
Does this type of opportunity still exist or do we now put too much focus on
having people concentrate on a single area of expertise?

~~~
tachyonbeam
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 worthless.

I'm in compilers and programming languages. I really wanted to create my own
language as part of my PhD thesis, but I was basically told that this would be
unpublishable. I mean, how can you hope to numerically show that your language
is better than everything else around? Plus it's all been done already,
nothing else new can possibly be invented in that realm.

Things weren't always like this. In the 1970s, we created things like
Smalltalk, ML and LISP, which had a tremendous impact on the programming
world. People also had bold ideas about artificial intelligence and nuclear-
powered spaceships. In the 70s, people were allowed to just explore ideas, in
the hopes that these ideas would lead to something good (and some did). Now,
it's much harder, you bring up an idea and people immediately try to shoot it
down, ask you for proof that it definitely will work, and bring up the most
asinine suggestions as to why your idea will definitely fail.

Today, the exploration has been scaled down. It's not because the exploration
failed, we invented many great things as a result of it, it's largely IMO
because we live in different economic times. The USA is no longer in an
economic boom, things are no longer in expansion. There are cuts to scientific
funding, cuts to education. People are being told not to be "wasteful". We
live in a much more nearsighted world, in a sense. Being a dreamer isn't
considered a virtue.

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

~~~
darkmighty
And von Neumann lived mostly though war and 30's financial crisis. I honestly
think it's more a question of (lack of) will/confidence from part of academia.
I bet if had really good ideas about new languages and really wanted to dig
deep on that he would be able to do so without starving.

Maryam Mirzakhani (this year's female fields Medalist) commented that she's
quite a slow thinker, and left a clear impression that it's more a matter of
asking important questions and actually trying to solve them with
perseverence. It's just far more secure to chase the low-hanging fruits.

[http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-...](http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-
explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/)

" Another notable and enviable trait of von Neumann's was his mathematical
courage. If, in the middle of a search for a counterexample, an infinite
series came up, with a lot of exponentials that had quadratic exponents, many
mathematicians would start with a clean sheet of paper and look for another
counterexample. Not Johnny! When that happened to him, he cheerfully said:
"Oh, yes, a thetafunction...", and plowed ahead with the mountainous
computations. He wasn't afraid of anything."

That's an inspiration!

~~~
tachyonbeam
My understanding is that during the war, the american government was throwing
money around liberally. Trying to do everything it could to outwit and outdo
the enemy. This is part of what caused the post-war economic boom, money being
distributed and more people getting a chance to prosper.

~~~
e12e
Makes one wonder what the NSA have been doing since the 80s. They're supposed
to be the biggest employer of mathematicians, and since the 90s they've had
their very own "war budget". Maybe in 2050 we'll say -- oh wow, look at all
the great stuff that came out of the islamophobic-fuelled war on the middle
east that the US spearheaded. Shame about the future ruined for half a billion
people, but boy did they come up with some crazy stuff at the NSA!

~~~
gwern
> Makes one wonder what the NSA have been doing since the 80s. They're
> supposed to be the biggest employer of mathematicians, and since the 90s
> they've had their very own "war budget".

I wonder. Does anyone have _recent_ sources indicating the NSA really might be
the biggest employer of mathematicians? I'd also point to the Snowden and
other leaks and attacks like Stuxnet - so far, everything revealed has been
fairly humdrum in the sense that they are more or less what you'd expect if
you threw a few billion dollars at known vulnerabilities in the Internet and
current OSes. Portmapping entire countries' computers may be impressive in
some respects, but not in the sense of beyond-cutting-edge
cryptography/mathematics.

~~~
e12e
I'd say the recent revelation/allegation that NSA accidentally took down
Syria's Internet connection in the recent Wired interview with Snowden and the
general "vibe" of mismanagement that I get from Snowden's and Binney's
accounts -- doesn't have to imply that NSA doesn't _also_ do interesting work
_other_ than their practical attacks on global infrastructure. But it does
seem clear that _if_ they actually do interesting stuff (say, working on using
multiple satellites to photograph the same area in order to extrapolate to
higher resolution images than what is possible from a single lens due to
atmospheric effects -- or perhaps quantum or DNA/RNA computing etc). It _is_
clear that whatever they might be doing, it does seem to be ridiculously
highly classified, just like the sibling comment's example with RSA and GCHQ.

~~~
gwern
While the NSA has a huge budget, it's not infinite, and what gets one promoted
and what analysts are boasting about in their slides gives you a definite idea
for what the organization values. Do any of the leaks _sound_ like there might
be huge contingents of mathematicians off in side-corridor making
breakthroughs? Not really.

------
laichzeit0
I'm surprised this article doesn't mention his language abilities.

Since the age of six, von Neumann was fluent in Latin and ancient Greek. He
also read (and remembered completely) all the major works of antiquity.

As someone who's been struggling with Latin and Greek for over 10 years it
completely breaks my spirit to know that for someone else it was so
effortless.

------
spindritf
What I find truly remarkable about polymaths is that they don't seem to be
crippled in other regards. There is no trade-off. Actually, abilities seem to
positivly correlate rather than displace each other.

It seems like there's a free lunch somewhere. Which is unusual for living
beings, for evolution to miss it.

~~~
eggoa
Well, he only had one kid. That makes him a pretty lousy performer from
evolution's point of view.

~~~
walterbell
He did improve the evolutionary odds of most people on HN, so that counts for
something.

------
bagrow
The section on "work habits" is especially amazing. I know people who are very
smart but also very lazy. They end up falling behind in the long run; may be a
corollary to the Curse of the Gifted.

------
jnazario
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...](http://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-
Poundstone/dp/038541580X/)

~~~
Radim
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 at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"_

(and this is not just some cranky scientist rambling -- he was very high up in
the military circles, an advisor/policy maker).

Another common target of cringeworthy worship: Feynman. All fun stories (and
I'm aware saying this is probably not going to go down well on HN) until you
read about the abuse of women, paid abortions, broken marriages of his
colleagues...

They're all human.

~~~
mau
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.

~~~
irremediable
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...](https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-
america-10/fbi-files-on-richard-feynman-1165/#366875-responsive-documents)) on
Feynman.

I don't know anything about the "paid abortion" thing.

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

~~~
jerf
"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.

~~~
irremediable
I half-agree with you, but isn't there an ethical line past which it's wrong
to call someone a hero?

~~~
fail2ban
Isn't that something you should decide for yourself? Also, why do you assume
there's a duality between hero and non-hero? The person did what they did.
Simplifying it to the point of 'hero' or 'not hero' is overgeneralizing, I
think. Acknowledge their achievements. Acknowledge their faults. Labels aren't
a requirement.

------
mililani
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.

------
CurtMonash
"Hungarian is not exactly a lingua franca" Hard to argue with that part. :)

Anyhow, a colleague of mine at PaineWebber sadly came down with schizophrenic
delusions, and concluded that he and I were illegitimate children of Norbert
Weiner, while Jack Grubman and Andy Kessler had been sired by John von
Neumann. I objected strenuously; as somebody whose PhD these was a special
case of the min-max theorem for zero-sum games, I thought it only fitting that
I be on the von Neumann side of the ledger.

------
yohanatan
Gödel did not prove that mathematics could not 'be proved consistent'. He
proved that particular axiomatic systems cannot be _both_ complete _and_
consistent.

~~~
Chinjut
Presumably, the reference is to Goedel's second incompleteness theorem, rather
than the first incompleteness theorem. (One might still quibble with phrasing
it in this way, of course)

------
oafitupa
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann)

~~~
Cyph0n
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.

~~~
a3n
Except they're not unrelated. Von Neumann needed more computing power than he
had available, for studying bomb blasts. Not only did he and colleagues
largely create digital computers, but he marshaled the resources of the US
government and academia to get it done.

Dyson's _Turing 's Cathedral_ is a fascinating account of the development of
digital computers. The early ones were amazingly physical, using wave
propagation delays in liquid mercury, and repeatedly painting rows of
oscilloscope screens, as _storage_.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turing%27s%20cathedral](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turing%27s%20cathedral)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube)

EDIT: s/Turning/Turing/

~~~
Cyph0n
Wow. Really cool stuff. I'll be sure to check out the book then.

