John von Neumann Sees the Future
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 ideas with each other and promoted each other’s ideas. John von Neumann has been called the smartest individual of the 20 th Century. Even an outline of his accomplishments, which you can read about in Wikipedia, is hard to believe. He invented game theory, which I discussed in two earlier posts. He headed up a group of mathematicians who invented new statistical techniques at Los Alamos that made the atomic bomb possible. In 1944, he wrote a memo that outlined the structure of the modern computer. He then managed the design and building of a modern general computer and consulted on the building of virtually all ...