John von Neumann

John von Neumann (December 28. 1903 – February 8. 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist.

John von Neumann
John von Neumann in the 1940s
Born	(1903-12-28)December 28, 1903 Budapest, Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy
Died	February 8, 1957(1957-02-08) (aged 53) Washington, D.C., United States
Nationality	Hungarian, American
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics

He contributed to many fields, including:

• Set theory
• Functional analysis
• Quantum mechanics
• Ergodic theory
• Continuous geometry
• Economics
• Game theory
• Computer science
• Numerical analysis
• Systems theory
• Statistics

He is generally regarded as a prodigy, polymath and one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century.

He was a member of a group called the 'Martians'. They were Hungarian immigrants to the US of extraordinary intellect. Others people in this group were Edward Teller, Paul Erdős, Leó Szilárd and Eugene Wigner.

Noteworthy work

1. His textbook on quantum mechanics is one of the first on this topic.
2. His game theory is considered one of the most important tools in competitive strategic management and is also of high importance in biosciences.
3. He is the designer of the Von-Neumann architecture, which is basic to nearly all computers today.
4. He was one of the first proponents of artificial intelligence. He proposed the idea of self replicating machines. This is why a machine that can replicate itself is now commonly referred to as a 'Von Neumann machine'.
5. With Stanislav Ulam, he did some of the most important calculations in the Manhattan project.
6. He worked at the Institute of Advanced Studies the same time as Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel and Robert Oppenheimer
7. Well known by computer scientists
8. Principles are included in every modern computer, tablet or phone.

John Von Neumann Media

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  Excerpt from the university calendars for 1928 and 1928/29 of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin announcing Neumann's lectures on the theory of functions II, axiomatic set theory and mathematical logic, the mathematical colloquium, review of recent work in quantum mechanics, special functions of mathematical physics and Hilbert's proof theory. He also lectured on the theory of relativity, set theory, integral equations and analysis of infinitely many variables.

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  Tomb of John von Neumann in Princeton, New Jersey

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  History of approaches that led to NBG set theory

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  Von Neumann's memorial plaque on the wall of his birthplace in Budapest, 5th district Báthory u. 26.

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  Flow chart from von Neumann's "Planning and coding of problems for an electronic computing instrument", published in 1947

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  The first implementation of von Neumann's self-reproducing universal constructor. Three generations of machine are shown: the second has nearly finished constructing the third. The lines running to the right are the tapes of genetic instructions, which are copied along with the body of the machines.

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  A simple configuration in von Neumann's cellular automaton. A binary signal is passed repeatedly around the blue wire loop, using excited and quiescent ordinary transmission states.

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  Von Neumann's wartime Los Alamos ID badge photo

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  Animation representing how explosive lenses are used to compress a fissile core inside an implosion-type nuclear weapon.

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  Operation Redwing nuclear test in July 1956