.. raw:: html
From: `Oxford
Reference `__\
.. container::
“Hungarian-born US mathematician, creator of the theory of games and
pioneer in the development of the modern computer. Born in Budapest,
the son of a wealthy banker, von Neumann was educated at the
universities of Berlin, Zürich, and Budapest, where he obtained his
PhD in 1926. After teaching briefly at the universities of Berlin and
Hamburg, von Neumann moved to the USA in 1930 to a chair in
mathematical physics at Princeton. In 1933, he joined the newly
formed Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton as one of its
youngest professors. By this time he had already established a
formidable reputation as one of the most powerful and creative
mathematicians of his day. In 1925 he had offered alternative
foundations for set theory, while in his Mathematischen Grundlagen
der Quantenmechanik (1931) he removed many of the basic doubts that
had been raised against the coherence and consistency of quantum
theory. In 1944, in collaboration with Oskar Morgenstern (1902–77),
von Neumann published The Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour. A
work of great originality, it is reputed to have had its origins at
the poker tables of Princeton and Harvard. The basic problem was to
show whether it was possible to speak of rational behaviour in
situations of conflict and uncertainty as in, for example, a game of
poker or wage negotiations. In 1927 von Neumann proved the important
theorem that even in games that are not fully determined, safe and
rational strategies exist. With entry of the USA into World War II in
1941 von Neumann, who had become an American citizen in 1937, joined
the Manhattan project (for the manufacture of the atom bomb) as a
consultant. In 1943 he became involved at Los Alamos on the crucial
problem of how to detonate an atom bomb. Because of the enormous
quantity of computations involved, von Neumann was forced to seek
mechanical aid. Although the computers he had in mind could not be
made in 1945, von Neumann and his colleagues began to design Maniac I
(Mathematical analyser, numerical integrator, and computer). Von
Neumann was one of the first to see the value of a flexible stored
program: a program that could be changed quite easily without
altering the computer’s basic circuits. He went on to consider deeper
problems in the theory of logical automata and finally managed to
show that self-reproducing machines were theoretically possible. Such
a machine would need 200 000 cells and 29 distinct states. Having
once been caught up in affairs of state von Neumann found it
difficult to return to a purely academic life. Thereafter much of his
time was therefore spent, to the regret of his colleagues, advising a
large number of governmental and private institutions. In 1954 he was
appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission. Shortly after this, cancer
was diagnosed and he was forced to struggle to complete his last
work, the posthumously published The Computer and the Brain (1958).”
.. raw:: html
|
.. raw:: html
.. _fig_von_neumann:
.. figure:: ../figures/ch1_von_neumann.jpg
:width: 200px
John von Neumann (1903 – 1957)
.. raw:: html
|
.. raw:: html
.. raw:: html