A (very) Brief History of John von Neumann

In this episode, we cover the history of the 20th century Hungarian-American John von Neumann, one of the most pivotal figures of the 20th century, especially notable for his contributions to the creation of the atom bomb.

[Quantumfluxfield]

I've never heard as many scientists saying they cant keep up with someone else as with Neumann, his mind must have been immensily powerful. Thanks for the video!

[thehammurabichode]

*When he was six years old, he could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. When the six-year-old von Neumann caught his mother staring aimlessly, he asked her, "What are you calculating?"* - Wikipedia

[kchannel]

He probably was the smartest human on earth, this needs more views.

[omnivorous]

His brilliance was such that even sane - and immensely intelligent people - contemplated whether he might have been an alien.

[lowersaxon]

As an Economist I feel obliged to mention his fundamental paper on economic equilibrium and growth first published in German in 1938 and originally presented to a famous Seminar in Vienna. 8 years later the paper was published in English. This contribution was a brilliant door opener for what was to come later in theoretical economics after WWII. For the first time it used mathematical fix point theorems ( vN generalized Brouwer, later further generalized by Kakutani) to solve a set of linear economic inequalities. The paper cannot be overestimated, imho.

[shawn]

What an interesting dude with such a wide range of knowledge. It's the kind of character that would actually break immersion if a book or movie made the main character this brilliant.

[jamesbentonticer]

The most underrated scientist of all time.

[objectorienteddata]

Was awaiting a video on this man. Excellent work my friend! Never failing to impress.

[GreenHotDogz]

I started reading "The Three Body Problem" and came across his character and role in the book. I was not familiar with who he was prior to that point in the book.. but I'm glad you were here to explain his life.. even if it was brief. :D

[aghowrath]

He is my Hero..an unrivaled Genius..I particularly admire his work with Ulam to realize the functionality of the Bomb and also with Chandrasekhar (stochastic fluctuations in stellar theory). He did all of this effortlessly..Wigner's epitaph to him was conclusive..to paraphrase.."There was only one Genius. JVN.."

[snowflower]

I love your videos, you pronounce everything so perfectly. Absolute gem of a channel:D

[BigA]

I first heard of von Neumann when related to computer architecture. I was therefore a little surprised when no mention was made of his contribution to computer architecture.

[unclejuju]

My favorite part of this was that he was reading while driving lol. Shows his dedications. Amazing work covering his life, super educational and well put together!

[marcalvarez]

Great video, thank you. You included info id never read or heard about him.
Subscribed!

[LydellAaron]

Thank you for sharing this video.
10:13. "A point in a complex Hilbert space, which can be infinite dimensional even for a single particle." Nice.

[edvargas]

Excellent work. I enjoyed it very much!!

[Kounomura]

As a Hungarian physicist myself too, I highly appreciate the scientific achievements of JVN, Wigner, Szilárd, and Teller as one of the 8, 000-meter peaks of human intelligence. But at the same time, we must also see that if the Earth ever becomes uninhabitable due to human activity, then we can thank it our greatest physicists (also for the peaceful mathematicians or other outstanding scientists, ) in the first place. Not because of their performance, - sithence they gave their best -, but because they were so naive that they didn't know what should or shouldn't be handed over to the ruling classes of humanity and what not. They make the same mistake as a father who puts a machine gun in the hands of his son, hoping that he will use it only to deter predators. Human intelligence is as much a curse as a blessing. Today, it is technically possible to wipe out all of humanity within 1 day.

[armchairtin-kicker]

Undoubtedly von Neumann's greatest idea was the Stored-Program Concept, a concept that recognized computer instructions as data. Previously, computers were programmed by rewiring them, a task that was quite tedious and error prone, taking hours if not days to complete.

[birgirkarl]

Fantastic mini-doc. Clear, concise and well spoken manuscript.

[gucker]

Wow, I had no idea that von Neumann was such a great mathematician. Thank you for this video!