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Von Neumann: Math & Science Pioneer

John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and polymath who made major contributions to numerous fields including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. He published over 150 academic papers in his life, with topics spanning pure mathematics, physics, applied mathematics and more. Von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II where he developed mathematical models for explosive lenses used in nuclear weapons. After the war, he advised numerous government organizations including on nuclear weapons work.

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385 views1 page

Von Neumann: Math & Science Pioneer

John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and polymath who made major contributions to numerous fields including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. He published over 150 academic papers in his life, with topics spanning pure mathematics, physics, applied mathematics and more. Von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II where he developed mathematical models for explosive lenses used in nuclear weapons. After the war, he advised numerous government organizations including on nuclear weapons work.

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JonardTan
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John von Neumann (/vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/; Hungarian: Neumann János Lajos, pronounced [ˈnɒjmɒn

ˈjaːnoʃ ˈlɒjoʃ]; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American


mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and polymath. He made major contributions to a
number of fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis,
ergodic theory, representation theory, operator algebras, geometry, topology, and numerical
analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics, and quantum statistical mechanics),
economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, self-
replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics.

Von Neumann was generally regarded as the foremost mathematician of his time[2] and said to be
"the last representative of the great mathematicians".[3] He was a pioneer of the application of
operator theory to quantum mechanics in the development of functional analysis, and a key
figure in the development of game theory and the concepts of cellular automata, the universal
constructor and the digital computer. He published over 150 papers in his life: about 60 in pure
mathematics, 20 in physics, and 60 in applied mathematics, the remainder being on special
mathematical subjects or non-mathematical ones.[4] His last work, an unfinished manuscript
written while in hospital, was later published in book form as The Computer and the Brain.

His analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA.
In a short list of facts about his life he submitted to the National Academy of Sciences, he stated,
"The part of my work I consider most essential is that on quantum mechanics, which developed
in Göttingen in 1926, and subsequently in Berlin in 1927–1929. Also, my work on various forms
of operator theory, Berlin 1930 and Princeton 1935–1939; on the ergodic theorem, Princeton,
1931–1932."

During World War II, von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project; he developed the
mathematical models that were behind the explosive lenses used in the implosion-type nuclear
weapon. After the war, he served on the General Advisory Committee of the United States
Atomic Energy Commission, and later as one of its commissioners. He was a consultant to a
number of organizations, including the United States Air Force, the Army's Ballistic Research
Laboratory, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, and the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. Von Neumann, theoretical physicist Edward Teller, mathematician Stanisław Ulam
and others worked out key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and
the hydrogen bomb.

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