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John von Neumann Biography

John von Neumann

John von Neumann (/vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/; Hungarian: Neumann János Lajos, pronounced [ˈnɒjmɒn ˈjaːnoʃ ˈlɒjoʃ]; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and polymath. He made major contributions to a number of fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, representation theory, operator algebras, geometry, topology, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics, and quantum statistical mechanics), economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics.

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John von Neumann Quotes

The most vitally characteristic fact about mathematics is, in my opinion, its quite peculiar relationship to the natural sciences, or more generally, to any science which interprets experience on a higher than purely descriptive level.

Facts, Levels, Mathematics, Peculiar, Science

There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't.

Easier, God, Ifs, Probably, Things

I am thinking about something much more important than bombs. I am thinking about computers.

Bombs, Computers, Important, Thinking

I would like to make a confession which may seem immoral: I do not believe in Hilbert space anymore.

Believe, Like, May, Space

If one has really technically penetrated a subject, things that previously seemed in complete contrast, might be purely mathematical transformations of each other.

Complete, Mathematical, Might, Purely, Technically, Transformation

It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.

Complain, Law, Laws, Magnetic, People, Selfish

I am a little troubled about the tea service in the electronic computer building. Apparently the members of your staff consume several times as much supplies as the same number of people do in Fuld Hall and they have been especially unfair in the matter of sugar. . . . I should like to raise the question whether it would not be better for the computer people to come up to Fuld Hall at the end of the day at 5 o'clock and have their tea here under proper supervision.

Come, Numbers, People, Service, Tea, Troubled

The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work-that is, correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area.

Explain, Mathematics, Model, Science, Trying, Verbal

You don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in.

Being Responsible, Responsible, World

There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about.

Know, Knows, Precise, Programming, Talking

It is exceptional that one should be able to acquire the understanding of a process without having previously acquired a deep familiarity with running it, with using it, before one has assimilated it in an instinctive and empirical way. . . Thus any discussion of the nature of intellectual effort in any field is difficult, unless it presupposes an easy, routine familiarity with that field. In mathematics this limitation becomes very severe.

Difficult, Effort, Limitation, Running, Understanding

All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control.

Control, Meteorology, Process, Processes, Stable, Unstable

You wake me up early in the morning to tell me I am right? Please wait until I am wrong.

Morning, Tell, Up Early, Wait, Waiting, Wrong

The calculus was the first achievement of modern mathematics and it is difficult to overestimate its importance. I think it defines more unequivocally than anything else the inception of modern mathematics; and the system of mathematical analysis, which is its logical development, still constitutes the greatest technical advance in exact thinking.

Calculus, Defines, Difficult, Math, Teaching, Thinking

There is no point in being precise if you do not even know what you are talking about.

Know, Knows, No Point, Point, Precise, Talking

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.

Believe, Complicated, Math, Mathematics, Simple

With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.

Elephants, Fit, Five, Four, Make, Trunk

Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

Approximations, Complicated, Religion, Truth, Truth Is

If you tell me precisely what it is a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that.

I Can, Ifs, Machine, Machines, Make, Precisely

When we talk mathematics, we may be discussing a secondary language built on the primary language of the nervous system.

Discussing, Language, May, Nervous, Secondary, Talk

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