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Unfortunately there has been lack of academic literature on this too on how he was able to solve problems so quickly. Much of what is known can only gathered fr
by mjreacher 5y ago
Unfortunately there has been lack of academic literature on this too on how he was able to solve problems so quickly. Much of what is known can only gathered from anecdotes from those who knew him personally. Edward Teller said in an interview that von Neumann enjoyed thinking more than anything else and did it all the time. This fits in well with other anecdotes. He was known to leave parties for periods of time to go to his room and write things down. He slept for only 4 hours a day and at night worked on problems. From what's been said of him he clearly spent basically his entire time thinking and working through problems. Then of course his favored way of attacking problems was axiomatically so he had some systematic way of going about this too. The end result of someone who spends a lot of time solving problems is that they know how to solve a lot of problems when they come up again.
- rustybolt 5y ago> slept for only 4 hours a day I've only really seen this mentioned in comments. All references I could find state that he often slept until late (for example, he liked to sleep until after 10AM). I would be wary of glorifying extremely short sleep patterns, they are unhealthy for 90% of the population.
- emerged 5y agoWell you basically just described me, but I’m no JvN.
- mjreacher 5y agoWell if you can solve problems of functional analysis or linear programming while at a party with others I must congratulate you, you're probably half way there lol
- JKCalhoun 5y ago> He slept for only 4 hours a day Edison as well. Interesting that. When I was a teen, I was introduced to a friend of my step-father's that had the same affliction — he slept only 3 or 4 hours a day. He had told me it was unusual. I don't know how unusual it is. If it is common enough then von Neumann and Edison having the same inclination is of no significance.
- mjreacher 5y agoI believe the reason can be genetic https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-identified-people-who-need-little-sleep https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-id...
- Qem 5y agoHe died at 54. It surely wasn't good for his health to sleep only 4 hours every night.
- jacquesm 5y agoLet's reverse that: if he had not only slept 4 hours every night he would have gotten a lot less done in his life.
- Qem 5y agoIf sleeping 8h/day would grant him, say, ten more years, that would more than paid those extra 4h of awake time over his entire adult life, as 34x(1/6) < 10x(2/3).
- uncletaco 5y agoY’all know he died of cancer, right?
- KMag 5y agoIt's possible a lack of sleep reduced his immune response to the cancer. The body has some natural cancer fighting mechanisms, and it's only the mutations that escape these that become malignant tumors.
- uncletaco 5y agoIt’s possible. But what’s more possible is spending the latter half of his life working on nuclear weapons and observing bomb tests took their toll. It’s interesting how you guys are latching onto this man’s lack of sleep to speculate why he died young instead of the more obvious possibility, given his background.
- raincom 5y agoMaybe it had to do with the radiation exposure in Manhattan project.
- smiley1437 5y agoJvN grinding LeetCode before it was cool
- belter 5y agoHe would get rejected by a hiring committee. Not from the right school and not a social fit due to his preference of working with very loud German march music.