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It's true that the unconscious way he came about his theorems puts him in a different category to other famous names. But I wouldn't rank him as highly as Von N
by n4r9 2y ago
It's true that the unconscious way he came about his theorems puts him in a different category to other famous names. But I wouldn't rank him as highly as Von Neumann. That man made groundbreaking results in the foundations of mathematics, pure and applied mathematics, early computer science, quantum mechanics, economics, and more. I think Von Neumann might arguably be the most significant genius of the 20th Century, paralleled in history only perhaps by the likes of Newton and Leibniz.
Einstein made a few extremely valuable insights in theoretical physics, but I'd say the sheer breadth of comparable work that Von Neumann did across multiple fields makes him more outstanding.
- 400thecat 2y agoyes, but the contrast is striking: Von Neumann had privileged upbringing and education Just imagine what what Ramanujan could have been if he grew up in Von Neumann household
- mangodrunk 2y agoRamanujan wasn’t poor. He went to school and had access to many math books which he studied and was recognized as a child prodigy early on.