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Von Neumann Quotes

Browse 27 quotes about Von Neumann.

Von Neumann Quotes

“The spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity, but his rapidity; he was very, very fast. And like the modern computer, which no longer bothers to retrieve the logarithm of 11 from its memory (but, instead, computes the logarithm of 11 each time it is needed), Johnny didn't bother to remember things. He computed them. You asked him a question, and if he didn't know the answer, he thought for three seconds and would produce and answer.”

SciencePowerComputerPraiseMathematicsMemoryInsightMathSpeedClarityMathematicianSpectacularVon NeumannJohn Von NeumannNeumannJohnny Von NeumannLogarithm
Author:Paul R. Halmos
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“He was "a magician, a magician in the sense that he took what was given and simply forced the conclusions logically out of it, whether it was algebra, geometry, or whatever. He had some way of forcing out the results that made him different from the rest of the people." Israel Halperin about von Neumann”

Von Neumann
Book:Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory: From Chess to Social Science, 1900–1960
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“In desperation I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, "How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?" I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, "Four." He said, "I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk." With that, the conversation was over.”

SaidI CanMomentsUseRememberUsedNumbersFiveFourCuttingFitConversationMy FriendsAgreementImpressedElephantsDesperationArbitraryProceduresCalculationsTrunksParametersNot ImpressedVon Neumann
Author:Freeman Dyson
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“John von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!”

MenWorldMadeIdeasSocialInterestingResultsPowerfulAdviceGrewResponsibleActiveSeedsVery HappyVery PowerfulBeing ResponsibleHappy ManIrresponsibilityInteresting IdeasVon Neumann
Author:Richard P. Feynman
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“Von Neumann languages do not have useful properties for reasoning about programs. Axiomatic and denotational semantics are precise tools for describing and understanding conventional programs, but they only talk about them and cannot alter their ungainly properties. Unlike von Neumann languages, the language of ordinary algebra is suitable both for stating its laws and for transforming an equation into its solution, all within the "language."”

LawLanguageUnderstandingSolutionsOrdinaryProgramToolsPropertyReasoningConventionalPreciseEquationsTransformingDescribingSuitableAlgebraSemanticsVon Neumann
Author:John Backus
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“As a mathematician, von Neumann was quick, brilliant, efficient, and enormously broad in scientific interests beyond mathematics itself. He knew his technical abilities; his virtuosity in following complicated reasoning and his insights were supreme; yet he lacked absolute self confidence.”

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Author:Stanislaw Ulam
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“The two teachers that I had in the Art Institute who affected me the most were Kathleen Blackshear and Robert von Neumann; Kathleen Blackshear because she taught a class called design - I can't remember, design something, and in this class - it met once a week - we would do work centered around some theme, word or subject or technique or whatever, and bring it in for a three-hour discussion. And Kathleen was able, in watching and looking at our work, to direct us to all kinds of things which might relate to what we were trying to do, but she never attempted to tell us what to do.”

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Author:Warren MacKenzie
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“It was a figure painting class, where you had a model, and [Robert von Neumann ] would wander around and he'd come up behind someone and say, "Well, what are you trying to do?" And if you told him what you were trying to do, he would then proceed to discuss this with you and suggest things that you might look at and ways in which you could improve what you were attempting to do, etc - never worked on your painting, never touched your painting but talked extensively about what you were trying to do.”

IfsWayTryingWellsLooksMightBehindsClassFiguresPaintingModelsCome UpWanderEtcTouchedAttemptingVon NeumannFigure Painting
Author:Warren MacKenzie
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“...where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.”

LooksPastNextTermLinesAnswersHolyDignityDrawingBoundariesSandVagueOne LineRimsPerimeterVon NeumannLines In The Sand
Book:Kil'n People
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“There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn't say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann.”

WritingMaySaidHandsScienceCertainDifficultClassRichFiveTeachingMinutesStudentsRaisedProofSay AnythingFive MinutesTheoremsSeminarsBlackboardVon Neumann
Author:George Polya
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“My greatest concern was what to call it. I thought of calling it 'information,' but the word was overly used, so I decided to call it 'uncertainty.' When I discussed it with John von Neumann, he had a better idea. Von Neumann told me, 'You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.'”

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Author:Claude Shannon
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“The most spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity, but his rapidity; he was very, very fast. And like the modern computer, which no longer bothers to retrieve the logarithm of 11 from its memory (but, instead, computes the logarithm of 11 each time it is needed), Johnny didn't bother to remember things. He computed them. You asked him a question, and if he didn't know the answer, he thought for three seconds and would produce and answer.”

IfsThinkingKnowsRememberScienceThreeMemoriesAnswersModernProduceNeededComputerInsightClarityBotherSecondsMathematicianSpectacularVon Neumann
Author:Paul Halmos
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