Questions tagged [von-neumann]
John von Neumann (1903-1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath.
14
questions
0
votes
0
answers
124
views
John von Neumann's thinking process
I'm interested in John von Neumann these days. So I searched this file. And I read books The Man from the Future and John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game ...
0
votes
0
answers
91
views
Technical analysis of von Neumann's contributions to computing?
I have seen the book The Annotated Turing and I found it quite nice to understand the ideas of Alan Turing. Are there similar books for understanding von Neumann's ideas in computing?
0
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Did John von Neumann solve any unsolved problem in mathematics?
I have searched and examined legendary stories of the problem-solving skills of von Neumann in mathematics.
With George Polya
With Dantzig
Maybe there are other stories showing that he is a great ...
2
votes
0
answers
231
views
Did John von Neumann make any comments about the Many Worlds Interpretation of Hugh Everett?
I was having a discussion with a physicist about Many Worlds Interpretation and he told me that von Neumann like the idea of having multiple worlds in quantum mechanics. When I asked him about more ...
2
votes
1
answer
134
views
Who first proposed the idea of "resolution of the identity"?
Who first proposed the idea of "resolution of the identity" as used in the functional calculus of self-adjoint operators? Was it von Neumann?
In Japanese, it translates as "resolution ...
2
votes
1
answer
277
views
Did von Neumann consider the brain an analogue computer?
In this article, about an unfinished book by von Neumann (he died in 1957 before he could finish it), one can read:
After stating that he himself is neither a neurologist nor a psychiatrist, but a ...
4
votes
0
answers
81
views
von Neumann vignette on early computer usage
I'm looking for a vignette about von Neumann. My recollection is as follows but my google-fu is not bringing up anything.
von Neumann, having prodigious mathematical capacity even of the most mundane ...
2
votes
0
answers
78
views
Background on the Stone-von Neumann theorem
I'm a mathematician.
I'm required to give a lecture on the Stone-von Neumann theorem. I already have all the mathematical details figured out, but I wish to make the lecture more interesting by giving ...
1
vote
1
answer
170
views
Is there any book or site where John von Neumann's collected philosophical writings are presented?
I was wondering if von Neuman has any philosophical writings beside his writings on the relation of computers to the human mind and vice versa.
5
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How did von Neumann come up with his merge sort algorithm?
Since merge sort is the first $O(n \log n)$ time general purpose sorting algorithm I find it rather surprising that it was discovered without having any obvious conceptual predecessors. Are there any ...
9
votes
0
answers
598
views
Did John Von Neumann hate pure mathematics that became too abstract?
John von Neumann wrote the following in his essay The Mathematician:
As a mathematical discipline travels far from its empirical source,
or still more, if it is a second and third generation only ...
0
votes
1
answer
202
views
Did John von Neumann ever go to any Nordic Country? Did Eugene Paul Wigner ever go to any other Nordic country apart from Sweden?
I am researching the presence of important scientists in Nordic countries — Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. I was hoping that someone could help me since I've not been able to find ...
6
votes
1
answer
245
views
The minimax theorem from 1928 to 1956
Minimax theorems are beautiful saddle-point results regarding conditions on a function $f$ under which $\max_x \min_y f(x,y) = \min_y \max_x f(x,y)$. In the common "normal form" game case, $x$ and $y$ ...
6
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Why didn't John von Neumann win the Turing Award, Fields Medal or Nobel Prize?
From what I've read in Wikipedia, John von Neumann made a stupendous number of contributions to economics, computer science and mathematics. Why, then, didn't he receive a top award in any of these ...