6 ms·
Neumann is underrated. Everything might be relative, but one thing is sure: we are all reading this on a computer running on the von Neumann architecture.
by csbartus 5y ago
Neumann is underrated. Everything might be relative, but one thing is sure: we are all reading this on a computer running on the von Neumann architecture.
- jtsiskin 5y agoI’m not sure he’s “underrated”, almost everything I’ve heard about him describes him as one of the most intelligent people to have ever lived. I have seen more than one article proposing cloning his DNA as the best way to save humanity
- foobiekr 5y agoIs his dna even available? It would be interesting to analyze.
- Koshkin 5y agoThey'd be all men.
- hervature 5y agoYou are probably making a comment on diversity, but men's DNA encodes everything needed for a women simply by duplicating the X chromosome. Of course, more likelihood of genetic defects due to a single copy of an X as men are.
- csbartus 5y agoI mean, underrated in popular culture compared to Einstein, let's say. But, I've just learnt an anecdote about Neumann, Einstein and Godel. When Neumann signed for Princeton, he had two conditions: a 16k annual salary (others earned ~2k at that time) and to bring in that two people who are smarter than he. (Source, in Hungarian, someday we will have the subtitles from the AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6xoHlr0zk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6xoHlr0zk) UPDATE: The talk is about miracles and geniuses. According to the speaker, a genius is somebody who sees something which wasn’t in the air, up until that time. Neumann wasn’t a genius, rather a polymath who saw all what was in the air at that time
- dbuder 5y ago"How is it that Hungary produced so many geniuses in the early 20th century?" Wigner said. "I don't understand the question. There was only one genius: John von Neumann."
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wmf 5y agoAlthough there are stories that von Neumann architecture was invented by Eckert and Mauchly.
- Iwan-Zotow 5y agoZ-3
- wmf 5y agoI don't know much about Zuse but I wouldn't be surprised if he was ahead of the US/UK in some areas and nobody at the time realized it.
- KKKKkkkk1 5y agoBut the Eckert/Mauchly story is much more egregious in that they were co-inventors of the "von Neumann architecture" and were ripped off by Goldstine and von Neumann.
- effie 5y agoVon Neumann wasn't that important in development of the present-day computers. He just wrote a paper where he formalized the designs that were already appearing in real life due to other people - computer pioneers like Konrad Zuse and Eckert & Mauchly (ENIAC). Then other people started calling standard computers "von Neumann architecture". Pretty sure we would have similar to present-day computers without John von Neumann.
- mayankkaizen 5y agoUnderrated? Man, he was one of very few geniuses who is celebrated everywhere. May be not in pop culture but everywhere else. On the other hand, in a sense, Neumann is truly underrated. I mean you can talk about him for days and still you'd barely scratch the surface. His genius is so mysterious to me.