Jon Von Neumann has already come up with everything

Hey I'm not saying he shouldn't have

But imagine going about your daily business and then it dawns on you that you played a pivotal role in creating a weapon that killed hundreds of thousands of people etc etc

Must weigh on you somewhat

>perhaps behind in creativity

He was one of the most creative thinkers of all time. It really pisses me off when people think the accomplishments of mathematicians aren't creative. Having worked in both "creative" and "technical" fields, with a very strong bias towards the "creative" ones- I can tell you the "technical" fields require much more creativity than the "creative" ones if you want to actually do something meaningful in them. You can easilyyyy bullshit your way through the arts and have a very comfy/successful career, in many cases it is even encouraged- the less creative and more cliche the better- but you can't bullshit your way through mathematics and contribute to it. Unless you're Cantor.

Is it me or did he only pick low hanging fruits?

It's just you.

It's just you.

he kinda did.

It's like he didn't really apply his intelligence to anything meaningful like einstein.

Stability doesn't exist.
It's an illusion.
Give me the entire snapshot of the spacetime continuum, and point out this "stability".
Close but not perfect is not truly "stable".

What is something profound that he discovered
I mainly know him from economics (Von Neumann Morgenstern Utility function, literally just an expectation of utility) and physics (Von Neumann equation, the quantum analogue of the Liouville equation)

Here we go...

Gtfo, philfag

I don't know what a philfag is.
Also GTFO isn't a rational counter argument.
So, into the trash you go.

As long there is energy, there is instability.

If energy is unstable, then it is able to decay.

Newton was WRONG!

babe

Straw man argument
Why do people in Veeky Forums always resort to straw man arguments, and why when pressured on it, do they end up using false dilemma or argument from ignorance fallacies?
Oh Veeky Forums, when will you have actual graduates posting here?

Something tells me you're lying about your experiences. Probably because they entirely conflict with mine.

he looks so sad

It's like he looks around and see's only the end. The inevitability of this planets demise, and ultimately this universes. The futility of it all

>Oh Veeky Forums, when will you have actual graduates posting here?

That's always my complaint about /pol/. Fucking morons who don't know anything.

>greeks were not as influential as persians on modern civilization
>einstein stole everything that is credited to him
>china was a tech powerhouse for most of history
>jews are conspiring to destroy western civilization
>women are all race traitors and cheat on men

He was one of those who didn't care. It was very keen on blowing up commies

>tfw the smartest human who ever lived was a political conservative who encouraged the nuking of japan

Turning came up with a better design of an actual physical computer but Von Neumann got the credit of a helping build a lesser one while Turing failed to secure additional funding and people thought his ideas wouldn't work due to not knowing of his work in WWII. Von Neumann also was one of the first people to understand Godels and Turings work.

>>greeks were not as influential as persians on modern civilization
Wtf? Are /pol/acks actually saying this? I don't go to /pol/ but I've heard of the others one time or another, but not this one. What's the "rationale" behind this? How exactly does it fit into their narrative?

Was he able to prove the existence of god ?

he probably saw one post and now hes saying entire /pol/ says it.
I saw it on Veeky Forums too, I guess sci doesn't know about greek history as well.

Never take SJW posts seriously

Abelian von Neumann algebra
Affiliated operator
Amenable group
Arithmetic logic unit
Artificial viscosity (a numerical technique for simulating shock waves)
Axiom of regularity
Axiom of limitation of size
Backward induction
Blast wave (fluid dynamics)
Bounded set (topological vector space)
Carry-save adder
Cellular automata
Class (set theory)
Decoherence theory (Quantum mechanics)
Computer virus
Commutation theorem
Continuous geometry
Direct integral
Doubly stochastic matrix
Duality Theorem
Density matrix
Durbin–Watson statistic
Game theory
Hilbert's fifth problem
Hyperfinite type II factor
Ergodic theory
EDVAC
explosive lenses
Lattice theory
Lifting theory
Inner model
Inner model theory
Interior point method
Mutual assured destruction
Merge sort
Middle-square method
Minimax theorem
Monte Carlo method
Normal-form game
Pointless topology
Polarization identity
Pseudorandomness
PRNG
Quantum mutual information
Radiation implosion
Rank ring
Operator theory
Operation Greenhouse
Self-replication
Software whitening
Standard probability space
Stochastic computing
Subfactor
Von Neumann algebra
Von Neumann architecture
Von Neumann bicommutant theorem
Von Neumann cardinal assignment
Von Neumann cellular automaton
Von Neumann constant (two of them)
Von Neumann interpretation
Von Neumann measurement scheme
Von Neumann Ordinals
Von Neumann universal constructor
Von Neumann entropy
Von Neumann Equation
Von Neumann neighborhood
Von Neumann paradox
Von Neumann regular ring
Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory
Von Neumann spectral theory
Von Neumann universe
Von Neumann conjecture
Von Neumann's inequality
Stone–von Neumann theorem
Von Neumann's trace inequality
Von Neumann stability analysis
Quantum statistical mechanics
Von Neumann extractor
Von Neumann ergodic theorem
Ultrastrong topology
Von Neumann–Morgenstern utility theorem
ZND detonation model

Mathematically at least. They came up with algebra and zero and the current base 10 system and decimal system, as well as the first ways to solve linear and quadratic equations.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi

Why does Veeky Forums have such a strong cult of worship? It's unhealthy you know, having "gods" untouched by criticism, constantly beating yourself up because you "aren't as smart"

>Unless you're Cantor.
Triggered.

But there is no god, mate.

there's legitimate criticism about Von Neumann, but none of it is about his academic work or his intelligence. For example,
>Despite being a notoriously bad driver, he nonetheless enjoyed driving—frequently while reading a book—occasioning numerous arrests, as well as accidents.

You personally know people who have meaningfully contributed to mathematics that you would describe as just bullshitting their way through their career? Or you mean you have never met a person in the arts who is anything but an intellectual dynamo?

Did you misread my post? I asked for profound things that he discovered. Most of these are trivial and the others are just following things to their logical conclusion. Having a bunch of shit named after you doesn't mean it's important

"explosive lenses" was pretty profound tbphwy

your autism is showing

please dont try and criticise the literal smartest man to ever live

no matter what you say, you will come out looking like a retard

>There's legitimate criticism about Von Neumann, but none of it is about his academic work

There is debate in building the first stored computer. Apparently Turing had a better working computer but lacked the fame/funding and Von Neumann knew about Turing's and others work which led to a worse version that Turing's but got more fame/recognition

>pronounce his name as von "Newman" until I watched a documentary about him and learned it was von "noyman"
I hope I'm not the only one

virtually every digital device used by the entire world is based on his architecture

game theory, now a nobel field

he is the reason why we arent all speaking russian right now or dead -> both due to his foresight and his contributions to the manhattan project

>implying you actually have the knowledge or intellectual capacity to appreciate the significance of even 5% of the things von Neumann discovered.

See and

"On 19 February 1946 Turing presented a detailed paper to the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) Executive Committee, giving the first reasonably complete design of a stored-program computer. However, because of the strict and long-lasting secrecy around the Bletchley Park work, he was prohibited (because of the Official Secrets Act) from explaining that he knew that his ideas could be implemented in an electronic device. The better-known EDVAC design presented in the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (dated June 30, 1945), by John von Neumann, who knew of Turing's theoretical work, received much publicity, despite its incomplete nature and questionable lack of attribution of the sources of some of the ideas.

Turing's report on the ACE was written in late 1945 and included detailed logical circuit diagrams and a cost estimate of £11,200. He felt that speed and size of memory were crucial and he proposed a high-speed memory of what would today be called 25 KiB, accessed at a speed of 1 MHz. The ACE implemented subroutine calls, whereas the EDVAC did not, and what also set the ACE apart from the EDVAC was the use of Abbreviated Computer Instructions, an early form of programming language. Initially, it was planned that Tommy Flowers, the engineer at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill in north London, who had been responsible for building the Colossus computers should build the ACE, but because of the secrecy around his wartime achievements and the pressure of post-war work, this was not possible."

Low hanging fruits are unpicked fruits nonetheless. Someone has to pick them. Just because they hang low, doesn't mean that they won't be important.

The point is Jon Von Neumann is worshipped on Veeky Forums while there were other mathematicians just as intelligent as him during his time period.

...

>virtually every digital device used by the entire world is based on his architecture
prime example of his low hanging fruit

also see>game theory, now a nobel field
this isnt even a complete thought. and von neumann wasnt the one who made the pioneering contributions of game theory, just threw together the bits that everyone else knew someone else would get around to.

>he is the reason why we arent all speaking russian right now or dead
so? there is no inherent value to their negations. nothing to be thankful for
> -> both due to his foresight and his contributions to the manhattan project
he hardly did anything on the manhattan project

i'm not a brainlet, so this is not a valid response

>i'm not a brainlet
Having to announce that you're not a brainlet is the first sign that you're a brainlet.

Well I for one was T R I G G E R E D.

How the fuck did Cantor bullshit his way through anything? The guy is one of the best known underdogs in science to date, where the scientific method of the community failed miserably because "muh comfortable ass in muh seats lolz" assholes put more basis in their comfort and rigid thinking than any actual advancement of science. While set theory doesn't have any direct practical applications, it's enabled the creation of a language crucial in many areas of modern computing for instance. Many estimate that the significance of set theory will increase dramatically with advancements in quantum computing.

Just because you (and I, I admit) can't really understand his work, doesn't make it BS.

Not even close. Which I think is either disconcerting or comforting as fuck. Neumann achieved a whole fucking lot, in multiple branches of science and business. And yet, nothing as groundbreakingly significant as Einstein, for instance. Even if it can be argued that Einstein's work was build on the shoulders of giants before him where Neumann's was far more unique, in the end you'd expect pretty much the brighest mind ever to have existed, in so close to modern age, to have come up with so much more than he did.

I mean, Neumann was alive in time to be able to ponder the string theory, or another real theory of unification and whatnot ffs. And what happened? Nothing.

Hardly. It just appears there's a limit to what human creativity can be. Neumann was beyond a doubt among if not the greatest achievers in creativity + raw intellectual power + number of papers and theories with practical applications published.

Freeman Dyson was cooler and more ambitious in more meaningful subject in every way.

von Neumann didn't even design the EDVAC. He just went to UPenn, checked out what they had, and wrote a report on it. It's actually ridiculous that the "von Neumann architecture" bears his name.

>>Since something "outside the calculation" was needed to collapse the wave function, von Neumann concluded that the collapse was caused by the consciousness of the experimenter (although this view was accepted by Eugene Wigner,[69] the Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation never gained acceptance amongst the majority of physicists).

>mfw

>Newton
HAHA! A hack who plagiarized Leibniz!

Don't expect him to respond to that.

don't be such a simpleton, child. when I said creativity I wasn't talking about plebeian artistry which is bullshit and full of hacks anyway.

>Hardly. It just appears there's a limit to what human creativity can be.
well, that's what I mean. he was undoubtedly one of the most creative people in history but compared to his raw intelligence it seems it was a little behind.

>>In spite of his great powers and his full consciousness of them, he
lacked a certain self-confidence, admiring greatly a few mathematicians
and physicists who possessed qualities which he did not believe
he himself had in the highest possible degree. The qualities which
evoked this feeling on his part were, I felt, relatively simple-minded
powers of intuition of new truths, or the gift for a seemingly irrational
perception of proofs or formulation of new theorems

>>Mathematicians, at the outset of their creative work, are often
confronted by two conflicting motivations: the first is to contribute
to the edifice of existing work—it is there that one can be sure of
gaining recognition quickly by solving outstanding problems—the
second is the desire to blaze new trails and to create new syntheses.
This latter course is a more risky undertaking, the final judgment of
value or success appearing only in the future. In his early work,
Johnny chose the first of these alternatives. It was toward the end of
his life that he felt sure enough of himself to engage freely and yet
painstakingly in the creation of a possible new mathematical discipline.
This was to be a combinatorial theory of automata and organisms.
His illness and premature death permitted him to make only
a beginning.

I think these two passages sum up ole' Johnny.

Isaac Newton was smarter

The leaps in understanding that Isaac Newton made require a degree of intelligence greater than Von Neumann's

This and

Coulomb, Beethoven, Mozart, Einstein, Lemâitre

If you notice, I also mentioned Leibniz in that list.

Eh, the only one I can think of who matches him is Grothendieck. Ramanujan is mostly a meme.

Neither. I was a graduate student in stats at Cal. I can tell you that the most creative people I met were in philosophy, not math or physics.

>They came up with algebra and zero and the current base 10 system and decimal system

Algebra was created by Diophantus, a Greek. Base 10 and decimals are from India.

Newton was smart, maybe even once in 100 years smart.

But Von Neumann had such a ridiculously outstanding intellect even compared to other high geniuses, and he also possessed a truly eiditic memory.

Intelligence of this magnitude really is impossible to truly quantify, especially by people who cant even begin to comprehend their intellect, but i'd say that Neumann had a higher raw potential and higher intellectual ceiling than Newton.

Neuman is the definition of a universal polymath who excels at the highest level in any field he applied himself to.

Newton was fantastic, but he didnt seem to possess the same level of intellectual scope that Neumann was capable of.

>Von Neumann was so smart, yet barely contributed anything

Sounds like another underachieving asshole to me.

>Newton was fantastic, but he didnt seem to possess the same level of intellectual scope that Neumann was capable of.

this could be due to personal choice not a lack of intelligence

>barely contributed anything

what else should he have contributed?

he died early, many of the greatest most prolific geniuses really hit their peak in their older age, it's not his fault

he was deeply concerned with the soviet union (and rightly so), and spent a great deal of effort in fighting them rather than working on more academic goals

without von neumann you could make an easy case that russia would have won the cold war

america believed they were vastly superior than the soviet union and significantly more powerful, which was actually the exact opposite.

von neumann was the one who created the concept of MAD, and convinced the government that the russians were actually vastly superior in firepower. he was also deeply involved in the manhattan project and pretty much created and recruited all the people for it.

he really did enough

>america believed they were vastly superior than the soviet union and significantly more powerful, which was actually the exact opposite.

Lol maybe until 1960

right, and then von neumann came in and said hey amerifags i know u cucks think ur strong n all but 4real bruv ur shits bout to be pushed in m8

>america believed they were vastly superior than the soviet union and significantly more powerful
I think you got it backwards.

Americans believed the Soviet Union had vastly superior conventional forces, and the only way they could stop an invasion of western Europe was with nukes.