/sci/ - Science & Math

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbllFHBQM4

yes he made great contributions in other mathematical fields but does that make him a polymath..

it would be more impressive if he was a polymath in math, physics, chemistry, biology etc. but is it very impressive if you are just a polymath in sub fields of math.

Any competent mathematician can make important contributions in other fields once they understand the axioms of that sub field. what makes Von Neumann special here?

he was a dumbass?

listen to Paul Robeson's diction and then listen to Von Neumann's

Paul has greater command of vocabulary and diction than Von Neumann, yet yall like to say von neumann is smart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puOIdh944vk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbllFHBQM4

how good of a mathematician was he really now that we know he didn't actually design the "Von neumann architecture"

but he is overrated

i can name many mathematicians that were superior to him in the 20th century

Hermann Weyl, David Hilbert, Alexandre Grothendieck

is he simply a meme or an all time great mathematician?

(remember the von neumann architecture wasn't really his idea anyways)

than this guy?

he never actually came up with anything revolutionary or groundbreaking but added to existing concepts with mathematical excellence

but never really came up with anything new

dude was a complete genius

but did nothing original

or does he have any great original contributions?

in terms of intellect

she has a greater vocabulary and command of language than von neumann

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XrAK3YKF1I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLbllFHBQM4

polymaths are smart, but they tend to lack the deep results of specialists like an Einstein or a Godel

look at Leibniz, often called the "last universal genius" whose work spanned many fields, but no great accomplishments

same with Von Neumann

is what people around him said...they all praised him as a god it seems


Hans Bethe: " "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man".

Eugene Wigner , "one had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch." and also said "only he was fully awake"

Paul Halmos " "von Neumann's speed was awe-inspiring"

Israel Halperin ""Keeping up with him was ... impossible. The feeling was you were on a tricycle chasing a racing car."

Edward Teller said "he could never keep up with him"

he also said ""von Neumann would carry on a conversation with my 3-year-old son, and the two of them would talk as equals, and I sometimes wondered if he used the same principle when he talked to the rest of us..

Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim " "fastest mind I ever met"

Jacob Bronowski ""He was the cleverest man I ever knew, without exception. He was a genius."

George Polya " "Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of a lecture I stated an unsolved problem, the chances were he'd come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper."

Jean Diudonne " "may have been the last representative of a once-flourishing and numerous group, the great mathematicians who were equally at home in pure and applied mathematics and who throughout their careers maintained a steady production in both directions"

Peter Lax "most scintillating intellect of this century"

that even if you took away the "von neumann architecture" from his list of accomplishments

seeing as they were really the work of mauchley and eckhert,


he would still remain one of the elder gods of math, i know that people on here obsess over this man constantly, but it just boggles my mind how fucking smart he was

he might be the highest meme tier on here, but still dude was an alien

yes to an extent

no matter how much I study I am never going to be as intelligent as this man

what exactly did this guy do, he has become a meme on here

and don't say Computer architecture, because that was really the work of Mauchly and Eckert

>>7769161
The only honest list (by effort required):

- Classical musical instrument (students practice all day)
- Medicine (students study all day)
- Pure maths (students study a lot)
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Classical arts degrees, engineering
- CS (students do lots of other shit all day)
- Social sciences, Humanities (you barely learn anything, but you make some pretty good connections)
- Philsophy (literally don't need to do anything at all apart from reading some books)

By talent required:
- Pure maths (you better have some very strong abstract intelligence)
- Classical music, art (you need strong musical/artistic talent)
- Physics (you need somewhat of an abstract intelligence)
- Engineering, Philosophy (you need above average abstract intelligence)
- CS (less abstract intelligence than in Engineering)
- Social sciences, Humanities (almost no abstract intelligence required)

Have a picture of Johnny for attention grabbing.

Why do you even bother with academia?

--Academic greatness then

--can start your subject after undergrad with no formal training

--encouraged and able to have the time for a wide and cultured education, along with frequent discussion with friends on the great topics of interest and philosophies of the day

--von neumann can turn up to a random department of the university and revolutionise it within a week

--can mess about in your shed and discover elements, valuable industrial processes, secrets of the universe, new branches of philosophy


--Academic greatness now

--have to have a genuine autistically derived interest in your subject, have to train since the age of 5

--communicate solely through email

--stephen wolfram has to leave to peddle software, terence tao contributes to a level of breadth in mathematics the size of a bacteria's hair

--need four to five year of maths and physics training at university level, plus intense graduate level research, plus a machine financed by fifteen countries to learn that smaller stuff is made of slightly smaller stuff

What if there are no Von Neumann machines because we are the Von Neumann machines?