I don't know whether the following is true or false, and whether it is good to spread it, but it is a telling lesson about not building your worth upon your "ac

I don't know whether the following is true or false, and whether it is good to spread it, but it is a telling lesson about not building your worth upon your "achievements": here is a description of Von Neumann learning about his own upcoming death: "... his mind, the amulet on which he had always been able to rely, was becoming less dependable. Then came complete psychological breakdown; panic, screams of uncontrollable terror every night. His friend Edward Teller said, "I think that von Neumann suffered more when his mind would no longer function, than I have ever seen any human being suffer." Von Neumann's sense of invulnerability, or simply the desire to live, was struggling with unalterable facts. He seemed to have a great fear of death until the last... No achievements and no amount of influence could save him now, as they always had in the past. Johnny von Neumann, who knew how to live so fully, did not know how to die. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Von_Neumann.html http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Von_Neum... To be absolutely clear: I am certain I wouldn't behave any better faced with my own upcoming death. I just think it's not too good to heroise famoous people and stories about them to the point they are no longer recognizable as humans at all... And to be fair to the great man, here is a nice biographical article by noone else but Paul Halmos himself: http://poncelet.math.nthu.edu.tw/disk5/js/biography/v-n.pdf http://poncelet.math.nthu.edu.tw/disk5/js/biography/v-n.pdf