A man of the 20th century with a mind of the 21st century

If John von Neumann (1903-1957) was influenced by a philosopher, it was most likely Goethe; and his idea of a unifying force behind all manifestations of nature that we may not fully comprehend but can attempt to explain using the tools at our disposal. This spirit of curiosity to solve nature’s mysteries inspired von Neumann’s remarkable body of work encompassing: atomic and subatomic phenomena through quantum mechanics, numerical meterology, computer logic and architecture, and the theory of self-reproducing automata. He was a member of the Manhattan Project, and responsible for developing the atomic bomb and, later, the hydrogen bomb. Neumann, with Albert Einstein, was a founding member of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies.

Neumann, a Hungarian-American polymath, is regarded as one of modern mathematics’ giants. His career was distinguished by the establishment and invention of several new fields of mathematics, as well as fundamental contributions to many others. His research interests included pure mathematics, basic and applied science, mathematical analyses, quantum mechanics foundations, and scientific computing. Neumann believed in the power and significance of mathematical reasoning to modern civilisation. Neumann’s unique quality was that he developed his own set of heuristics that allowed him to easily and productively cross diverse fields of knowledge, recognise patterns, make connections and analogies, in unexpected ways in unrelated subjects. He was a genius of geniuses.

Janos Neumann was born in 1903, in Budapest, Hungary, in a wealthy Jewish family. Janos was an intellectually gifted child who excelled at mental arithmetic; his favourite game was Kriegspiel, a strategy game similar to chess. When Neumann was 15, he was sent to be tutored by Gabor Szego, who was frequently overwhelmed by the young prodigy’s solutions to complex mathematical problems. Neumann combined extreme quickness, broad interests, and fearsome technical prowess in a unique way. Despite the fact that there was a cap on the number of Jewish students who could attend the University of Budapest, he was accepted to study mathematics there in 1921, as an outstanding student. He received his doctorate in mathematics in 1926, with minors in experimental physics and chemistry.

Neumann had become a wunderkind by 1928, when he published The Theory of Parlour Games, which contained proof of the famous Minimax Theorem. The seminal paper on game theory, it concerned two-person zero-sum games, in which one participant’s gain is the loss of the other. Neumann saw the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union as a zero-sum game in the post-World War II era. He was one of a group of Hungarian and Jewish intellectuals who fled to the US from the turmoil of Nazi Europe in 1930. At age 30, he became the youngest professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, where he was frequently mistaken for a graduate student. It was famously said of him: “Most mathematicians prove what they can; Neumann proves what he wants.”

Neumann’s global engagement and broad intellectual pursuits were motivated by two profound convictions: first, the overarching responsibility that each of us has to make full use of our intellectual capacity; and, second, the critical importance of a politically-free environment for the welfare of humanity in general. Through 1930-1950, Neumann worked to use science and economics to combat totalitarianism, first of the right and then of the left.

If Artificial Intelligence ever surpasses human capacity for reasoning, it will be due in large part to Neumann’s contributions. If science can find a new balance between digital and neural networks, it will emerge from Neumann’s legacy. If humanity ever descends into an atomic inferno, it will have been the result of Neumann seeding the bomb. He believed that science and technology are value-neutral and can be used for great good or massive evil. Humankind is capable of both. Neumann reminds us that the fundamental ethical principle of all existence is untiring, purposeful, and positive effort and that man can only find his place in life by striving to participate in this vast cosmic movement in terms appropriate to his human capabilities. Ananyo Bhattacharya’s The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann is a must-read. Neumann had a wry sense of humour. Once emerging, so the apocryphal story goes, from a smashed car with the explanation: “I was proceeding down the road. The trees on the right were passing me in orderly fashion at 60 MPH. Suddenly, one of them stepped out in my path. Boom!”

Neumann was named the Financial Times ‘Person of the Century’ in 1999, as representative of the defining ideal that the power of the mind shapes the physical world; amidst the ‘intellectual brilliance and human savagery’ that characterised the twentieth century. One of the great minds of the modern world, Jon von Neumann deserves to be remembered and celebrated.