John von Neumann

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John von Neumann (/vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Jewish-born Hungarian and later American mathematician, physicist, inventor, polymath, and polyglot.

Life

Von Neumann made major contributions to many fields, including:

He was a pioneer of the application of operator theory to quantum mechanics, in the development of functional analysis, and a key figure in the development of game theory and the concepts of cellular automata, the universal constructor, and the digital computer.


Von Neumann's mathematical analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA.

Statement

In a short list of facts about his life he submitted to the National Academy of Sciences, he stated:

"The part of my work I consider most essential is that on quantum mechanics, which developed in Göttingen in 1926, and subsequently in Berlin in 1927–1929. Also, my work on various forms of operator theory, Berlin 1930 and Princeton 1935–1939; on the ergodic theorem, Princeton, 1931–1932."

Manhattan Project and nuclear physics

Von Neumann was a principal member of the Manhattan Project and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (as one of the few originally appointed).

Along with theoretical physicist Edward Teller and mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, von Neumann worked out key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb.

Papers

Von Neumann wrote one hundred and fifty published papers in his life; sixty in pure mathematics, twenty in physics, and sixty in applied mathematics.

Last work

His last work, an unfinished manuscript written while in the hospital and later published in book form as ''The Computer and the Brain'', gives an indication of the direction of his interests at the time of his death.

See also

External links