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GodelNumbering • today at 5:01 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

von Neumann is one of the very very few people that I struggle to place in any single template. From all the facts already present in the pdf and elsewhere, it does become immediately obvious that he had both superhuman memory and an extremely fast processor (although it is unclear if his brain followed a von Neumann architecture).

My template had guessed,

"sounds like someone who enjoyed working in quiet spaces" -> Nope, he liked loud environments to get his brain going (apparently Einstein once complained about Neumann being noisy)

"he would have been a focused person" -> Nope, he never worked on anything for too long

"unlikely to be motivated by money" -> Nope, he famously “loved money” according to Wigner [1]

"probably not someone who stares at women" -> nope, at Los Alamos, secretaries sometimes put cardboard across the open fronts of their desks because otherwise Neumann would stare

Tl;Dr: I find him fascinating.

[1]: interestingly, there was a group of Jewish Hungarian scientists - von Neumann, Eugene Wigner, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Theodore von Karman - all brilliant, all born within one-mile-radius circle in downtown Budapest, all emigrated to the US, collectively known as Martians by their colleagues.


Replies

HarHarVeryFunny • today at 6:29 PM

Feymann shared these qualities too, but seems he would have been more interesting to meet - more of a normal, yet brilliantly smart, person, unlike Von Neumann who while being a bon vivant also seems to have been a bit "off" with his inability to drive safely, not remembering where the drinking glasses in his own house were, etc.