4 ms·
It's hard to imagine von Neumann not being great today (I think some stories are probably made up, but he was obviously in the top 1 minds of his era), but it i
by mhh__ 3y ago
It's hard to imagine von Neumann not being great today (I think some stories are probably made up, but he was obviously in the top 1 minds of his era), but it is probably true that the "easy" stuff has been mined - where I would define easy as things that can stem from an application of brains around the coffee table rather than intense application of years of whittling at the conference stage.
- titanomachy 3y ago> in the top 1 minds of his era Not sure if that’s a typo
- prerok 3y agoNot the author, but probably top 1 percent?
- kgwgk 3y agoMore likely top 10 - if it’s indeed a typo.
- xxs 3y agotop 1% would be such way out of range. top 0.0001% would still not make it justice.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago1 out of every million... Yeah, that sounds about right to me as an actual lower bound.
- alex_smart 3y agoNot sure if you’re being facetious? There were not 100 people of the same calibre as JvN in the US or even the world surely.
- lordnacho 3y agoJvN, the finished product, probably you're right. But of the people born with his tools? How many were born into a setting that even cared for intellectual things? How many of them would be born into a wealthy family that could afford to hire private tutors for all their kids?
- glimshe 3y agoYes - probably a lot of regular commenters on HN are among the top 1% in intelligence.
- saagarjha 3y agoMaybe top 1% of thinking they are ;)
- vermilingua 3y agoI don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that JvN was the #1 mind of his era
- curt15 3y ago"I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man" - Hans Bethe
- prerok 3y agoThe top 1 percentile was a gross understatement that I should have removed immediately ;) I agree with many commenters. I would, however, like to point out that 20th century had many, many great minds, also working in the same timeframe. Claude Shannon comes to mind first, but there were many others whose contributions are the basis of technology today.
- alex_smart 3y agoProbably not. The figure is the right order of magnitude.
- mhh__ 3y agoIt's a Brian Clough joke
- vishnugupta 3y agoWould the present bureaucracy allowed him to flourish to the same extent though? That’s the question.
- bmitc 3y agoI honestly think not. Today's climate sidelines generalists.
- mptest 3y agoAnyone stumbling on this thread: A man from the future - ananyo bhattacharya chronicles his life and it is thrilling. If anyone has any of the questions the OP has, the book explains them. There were plenty of open problems then, they just were so unexplored it looked like he and hilbert invented them. Word of caution, relative to most of you folks I am a mathematical toddler. The book may be overly simple but my calculus professor really enjoyed it.