More than once I was studying something in completely unrelated fields (eg: quantum mechanics, biology, game theory), when suddenly von Neumann (who I first knew for his contributions to computer science) is mentioned and I'm like "What? This guy again?". After the third time I went to read his biography because it couldn't be the same person. But yeah, it was.
Yeah, the same happened to me. I believe it was the thermonuclear bomb and the Von Neumann architecture. I thought that it couldn't be the same guy - two entirely unrelated fields - but it was. The guy was, in my opinion at least, the last true polymath.
Except they're not unrelated. Von Neumann needed more computing power than he had available, for studying bomb blasts. Not only did he and colleagues largely create digital computers, but he marshaled the resources of the US government and academia to get it done.
Dyson's Turing's Cathedral is a fascinating account of the development of digital computers. The early ones were amazingly physical, using wave propagation delays in liquid mercury, and repeatedly painting rows of oscilloscope screens, as storage.
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More than once I was studying something in completely unrelated fields (eg: quantum mechanics, biology, game theory), when suddenly von Neumann (who I first knew for his contributions to computer science) is mentioned and I'm like "What? This guy again?". After the third time I went to read his biography because it couldn't be the same person. But yeah, it was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
Yeah, the same happened to me. I believe it was the thermonuclear bomb and the Von Neumann architecture. I thought that it couldn't be the same guy - two entirely unrelated fields - but it was. The guy was, in my opinion at least, the last true polymath.
Except they're not unrelated. Von Neumann needed more computing power than he had available, for studying bomb blasts. Not only did he and colleagues largely create digital computers, but he marshaled the resources of the US government and academia to get it done.
Dyson's Turing's Cathedral is a fascinating account of the development of digital computers. The early ones were amazingly physical, using wave propagation delays in liquid mercury, and repeatedly painting rows of oscilloscope screens, as storage.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turing%27s%20cathedral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube
EDIT: s/Turning/Turing/
Wow. Really cool stuff. I'll be sure to check out the book then.