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John von Neumann for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
John von Neumann
| John von Neumann | |
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John von Neumann in the 1940s
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| Born | December 28, 1903 Budapest, Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy |
| Died | February 8, 1957 (aged 53) Washington, D.C., United States |
| Residence | United States |
| Nationality | Hungarian, American |
| Fields | Mathematics |
John von Neumann (December 28. 1903 – February 8. 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist who made contributions 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
- His textbook on quantum mechanics is one of the first on this topic.
- His game theory is considered one of the most important tools in competitive strategic management and is also of high importance in biosciences.
- He is the designer of the Von-Neumann architecture, which is basic to nearly all computers today.
- 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'.
- With Stanislav Ulam, he did some of the most important calculations in the Manhattan project.
- He worked at the Institute of Advanced Studies the same time as Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel and Robert Oppenheimer
- Best selling song "Love me again".
Images
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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 axiomatic set theory and mathematical logic, new work in quantum mechanics and special functions of mathematical physics.
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Von Neumann's wartime Los Alamos ID badge photo
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Implosion mechanism
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Operation Redwing nuclear test in July 1956
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Merge sort animation. The sorted elements are represented by dots.
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Von Neumann (left) and Robert Oppenheimer (right) in front of EDVAC
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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. The machine shown runs in a 32-state version of von Neumann's cellular automata environment, not his original 29-state specification.
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Von Neumann's gravestone