EconAir

John von Neumann JOHN VON NEUMANN CREATES THE FUTURE If you want to understand the world we live in, you have to know about the thinking of three men – Alan Turing, Claude Shannon and John von Neumann.   I’ve talked a little about Alan Turing in an earlier essay.   All three men knew each other, discussed their thinking with each other, and promoted each other’s ideas. John von Neumann has been called the smartest individual of the 20 th Century (by his brother-in-law, who won a Nobel Prize in Physics).   A n outline of von Neumann's accomplishments, which you can read about in  Wikipedia, is hard to believe.   He invented game theory, which I discussed in two earlier posts.   He belonged to a group of mathematicians who invented new statistical techniques at Los Alamos that made the atomic bomb possible. He invented game theory. In 1944, he wrote a memo that outlined the structure of the modern computer.   He then managed the design a...

Alan Turing Alan Turing developed many of the basic concepts for digital computers in the 1930s. His ideas were promoted by John von Neumann.  In 1943, he came to the United States to exchange ideas and experiences with scientists and engineers at Bell Labs. He spent a great deal of time talking with Claude Shannon, the father of modern information theory, about their mutual interest in digital computers.   One day while having lunch in an AT&T executive dining room, Turing was describing his ideas about what a “thinking machine” could do. "His high-pitched voice already stood out above the general murmur of the well-behaved junior executives grooming themselves for promotion within the Bell corporation. Then he was suddenly heard to say: 'No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I’m after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.'" Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: An Enig...