ORDER OF CONVERSATION: 0:00 - Intro 0:24 - Top 3 Arguments Von Neumann Was The Smartest Person Ever 5:49 - Why Is He Not A Household Name? 11:12 - What Would He Think About The World Today? 17:46 - Why Have You Been So Interested In Him? 22:37 - What Was His Personality Like? 25:19 - How Did Writing The Book Change You? 30:13 - What Work & Leisure Do You Engage In? 36:06 - What Does It Mean To Live A Good Life?
Being smart at math does not mean you are smart in other areas. Many math bofins suck at logic, language, business, creative thinking, common sense, imagination, understanding other abstractions apart from numbers, planning, speculative thinking, spacial thinking, objective thought, accumulation of knowledge, strategy(chess will display) and so much more in which others are genius at. There are criminals who are brilliant at what they do in so much that they develop whealth and thrive. There are people who are not that good at math but have powerful intuitive thinking that they are able to get rich and make a living through gambling and other unknown sources e.g Mikki Maze. There are people who sucked at school but are brilliant businessmen. Shake spear couldn't do math to save his life, but John Neumann would dream to write like him. The gifts of men are endless, but society only supports these gifts like math as it has importance to the growth of the whole economy, not just to help the individual. Find your gifts God has given you and be yourself. Become the best version of you, try your hand at everything and so you will discover who you really are and how you are to minister to the world while getting paid crazy amounts of money for it.
I have always believed that Von Neumann is criminally under appreciated. Probably because he was labeled a mathematician. He also died relatively young.
Thanks for your comment 😊 If you fancy checking out the full episode you’ll find at 5:49 that I ask Ananyo why he’s not a household name. If you enjoy the episode and would consider subscribing to support the show that would be very much appreciated 😊 Thanks, Joe
John von Neumann made contributions to quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, computing, statistics, economics and game theory, lattice theory, group theory, and the hydrogen bomb. A phenomenal memory and a phenomenal computational ability. A polyglot, and the greatest mathematician, who covered the most areas of mathematics, of the 20th century!
@@stofjes4204 Thanks for the reply! There are people working on the unification with gravity into the quantum world who are the most intelligent people on the planet who I'd say 99% or more of the general population have never heard of.
Waves and matrix mechanics are very related. Waves are simply sine and cosine and complex exponentials. Matrix mechanics is linear algebra on complex variable systems, which has some modified arithmetic rules.
I haven't read his book yet, but I recently finished "The Maniac" by Benjamin Labatut. It's brilliantly written. A must for anyone interested in this man. The comparison with Gauss is appropriate. I will add Euler. I had no idea Von Neumann was connected to Bronowski and Mandelbrot.
Thanks for your comment and the recommendation! I recently heard Demis Hassabis recommend Labatut's book "When We Cease to Understand the World", so I'll definitely check your one out too. Hope you enjoyed the episode :)
Bronowski talks in his series The ascent of man about von Neumann as the absolut most intelligent man he ever met and Enrico Fermi as a distant second. By the way Fermi said about Neumann that his speed thinking was unfathomable
I worked for "Big Blue". The largest computer company in the world at the time. They hired "Johnny" as a consultant in 1951. I never saw any mention of him on company documentation or the term "von Neumann architecture".
@@thehumanpodcastofficial I was a Customer Engineer in the General Systems Division. I fixed minicomputers and keypunch related equipment. One of my fellow employees asked me, "Why do you want a computer at home?" Most guys were not interested in technology, it was just a "Good Job". Internally the place was different from the image it projected.
Good spot! Hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please feel free to recommend and guests and consider hitting subscribe to help me get them! Have a great weekend, Joe
Undoubtedly, Newmann's contribution was fantastic! But it is necessary to put people in their respective places. Let's do the following mental exercise: would Neumann be able to replace Leibniz? Would Leibniz be able to replace Newmann? Two monsters! but it is known that Leibniz was a universal genius and Newmann was not.
Thanks for your comment and engagement here! :) Interesting thoughts. Why would you argue Leibniz was a universal genius and Neumann was not? If you enjoyed the episode please consider subscribing. More episodes coming out very soon with some philosophers, a tech company founder/inventor and more! :)
Walter Pitts was in a group with Von Neumann working on cybernetics and AI with people like Norbert Wiener and they considered him on another level even compared to John and Norbert it would seem. He unfortunately had a premature downward spiral and died young. Look up the details of his intellect and you'll see his analytical intelligence was perhaps deeper than Von Neumann. Also intuitive intelligence is perhaps more important. I would put Aristotle, Peirce, Gödel, Gauss, Euler, Newton, and Einstein at the very least on a tier above Von Neumann just due to this. Von Neumann was a jack of all trades and made important contributions everywhere it would seem but the depth of these contributions are not as significant as even those made by geniuses like Shannon, R.A. Fisher, Grothendieck, Dirac, Kolmogorov, Weyl, Fermi.
Von Neumann was a universalist like Gauss, Euler, Archimede or Newton, a "great mathematician" (you can easily find a definition abkut this somewhere on the net) This guys realized things wich tops above any scientist of the history. Their "opera" is immortal, the rest will pass with time, their theorems and discoveries about the law of nature will stand forever
@giomot9737 I agree in a sense but that one paradigm-shifting discovery eluded him. Why is that? Perhaps bad luck but also perhaps because there was a lack of intuitive genius.
@@thehumanpodcastofficial Von Neumann was probably in the top ten smartest people ever. The smartest person in history was probably Isaac Newton or Christian Heinrich Heineken.
@@thehumanpodcastofficial John von Newmann was a great mathematician and a talented computer scientist, but Newton and Einstein were not only great mathematicians (Newton invented calculus), but great physicists too. Newton discovered the three Laws of Motion, and Einstein defined Relativity, the relationship of energy to matter (E=MC²), and received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Photoelectric Effect. Also, "smarter" isn't a scientific term.
@@davidhess6593 Interesting, thanks. Would you say Von Neumann made contributions to physics via quantum mechanism though? Also, if smarter isn't a scientific term, perhaps intelligence is?
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
ORDER OF CONVERSATION:
0:00 - Intro
0:24 - Top 3 Arguments Von Neumann Was The Smartest Person Ever
5:49 - Why Is He Not A Household Name?
11:12 - What Would He Think About The World Today?
17:46 - Why Have You Been So Interested In Him?
22:37 - What Was His Personality Like?
25:19 - How Did Writing The Book Change You?
30:13 - What Work & Leisure Do You Engage In?
36:06 - What Does It Mean To Live A Good Life?
Being smart at math does not mean you are smart in other areas. Many math bofins suck at logic, language, business, creative thinking, common sense, imagination, understanding other abstractions apart from numbers, planning, speculative thinking, spacial thinking, objective thought, accumulation of knowledge, strategy(chess will display) and so much more in which others are genius at. There are criminals who are brilliant at what they do in so much that they develop whealth and thrive. There are people who are not that good at math but have powerful intuitive thinking that they are able to get rich and make a living through gambling and other unknown sources e.g Mikki Maze. There are people who sucked at school but are brilliant businessmen. Shake spear couldn't do math to save his life, but John Neumann would dream to write like him. The gifts of men are endless, but society only supports these gifts like math as it has importance to the growth of the whole economy, not just to help the individual. Find your gifts God has given you and be yourself. Become the best version of you, try your hand at everything and so you will discover who you really are and how you are to minister to the world while getting paid crazy amounts of money for it.
Fascinating conversation. Thank you.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed :)
I have always believed that Von Neumann is criminally under appreciated. Probably because he was labeled a mathematician. He also died relatively young.
Thanks for your comment 😊 If you fancy checking out the full episode you’ll find at 5:49 that I ask Ananyo why he’s not a household name. If you enjoy the episode and would consider subscribing to support the show that would be very much appreciated 😊 Thanks, Joe
He wasn't that young when he died. 57 to be exact. Others like Alan Turing and Ramanujan died way younger.
John von Neumann made contributions to quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, computing, statistics, economics and game theory, lattice theory, group theory, and the hydrogen bomb.
A phenomenal memory and a phenomenal computational ability. A polyglot, and the greatest mathematician, who covered the most areas of mathematics, of the 20th century!
Thanks for your interesting comment Mike :) Hope you enjoyed the episode.
@@thehumanpodcastofficial
I have very much enjoyed this video!
Thank You so much for posting!
@@MikeFuller-ok6ok So pleased to hear you enjoyed the episode!
My pleasure.
Hope you enjoy future episodes!
There is so many smart people. Einstein, Von Humboldt or Haber or many unknown Indian people.
@@stofjes4204
Thanks for the reply!
There are people working on the unification with gravity into the quantum world who are the most intelligent people on the planet who I'd say 99% or more of the general population have never heard of.
GREAT INTERVIEW- WONDER ANOUT FEYNMAN AND VON NEUMAN AT LOS ALAMOS
Thanks for your comment. Glad you enjoyed the episode! :) Please consider subscribing for future ones!
Waves and matrix mechanics are very related. Waves are simply sine and cosine and complex exponentials. Matrix mechanics is linear algebra on complex variable systems, which has some modified arithmetic rules.
Thanks for your interesting comment Lydell! Hope you enjoyed the show.
@@thehumanpodcastofficial Yes, very engaging and thought provoking. 🙏🏽
@@LydellAaron Glad to hear you think so!
I haven't read his book yet, but I recently finished "The Maniac" by Benjamin Labatut. It's brilliantly written. A must for anyone interested in this man. The comparison with Gauss is appropriate. I will add Euler. I had no idea Von Neumann was connected to Bronowski and Mandelbrot.
Thanks for your comment and the recommendation! I recently heard Demis Hassabis recommend Labatut's book "When We Cease to Understand the World", so I'll definitely check your one out too. Hope you enjoyed the episode :)
Bronowski talks in his series The ascent of man about von Neumann as the absolut most intelligent man he ever met and Enrico Fermi as a distant second. By the way Fermi said about Neumann that his speed thinking was unfathomable
I worked for "Big Blue". The largest computer company in the world at the time.
They hired "Johnny" as a consultant in 1951.
I never saw any mention of him on company documentation or the term "von Neumann architecture".
Thanks for your comment. Wow very interesting. Why do you think there was no mention of either?
@@thehumanpodcastofficial
I was a Customer Engineer in the General Systems Division. I fixed minicomputers and keypunch related equipment. One of my fellow employees asked me, "Why do you want a computer at home?" Most guys were not interested in technology, it was just a "Good Job".
Internally the place was different from the image it projected.
@@psikeyhackr6914 Fascinating, thanks for sharing this. I wonder why they never mentioned him..
By FAR
Automata connects with Wolfram who exemplifies the automata part of a theory of everything
Thanks for your comment! Sorry I don’t quite understand - what do you mean?
Neumann was the Bruce Lee of mathematics.
Thanks for your comment! I like the metaphor.
38:05 Plato misquoted. Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living".
Good spot! Hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please feel free to recommend and guests and consider hitting subscribe to help me get them! Have a great weekend, Joe
Undoubtedly, Newmann's contribution was fantastic! But it is necessary to put people in their respective places. Let's do the following mental exercise: would Neumann be able to replace Leibniz? Would Leibniz be able to replace Newmann? Two monsters! but it is known that Leibniz was a universal genius and Newmann was not.
Thanks for your comment and engagement here! :)
Interesting thoughts. Why would you argue Leibniz was a universal genius and Neumann was not?
If you enjoyed the episode please consider subscribing. More episodes coming out very soon with some philosophers, a tech company founder/inventor and more! :)
Podcasters: practice a little every day not saying "erm", "you know", and "I mean". It's actually easy to replace these with silence. Thank you.
Lol he spoke just fine
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate the feedback. I'll bear this in mind as I continue to try and improve during future episodes! Joe.
I like his style of interviewing. Perfection is boring 😅
Thanks! ☺️ Appreciate it. Please consider subscribing for future episodes! Hope to get more guests like Ananyo on.
Am smarter
Wittgenstein
This is a good suggestion of a rival genius! Thanks for your comment. Joe.
Walter Pitts was in a group with Von Neumann working on cybernetics and AI with people like Norbert Wiener and they considered him on another level even compared to John and Norbert it would seem. He unfortunately had a premature downward spiral and died young. Look up the details of his intellect and you'll see his analytical intelligence was perhaps deeper than Von Neumann. Also intuitive intelligence is perhaps more important.
I would put Aristotle, Peirce, Gödel, Gauss, Euler, Newton, and Einstein at the very least on a tier above Von Neumann just due to this. Von Neumann was a jack of all trades and made important contributions everywhere it would seem but the depth of these contributions are not as significant as even those made by geniuses like Shannon, R.A. Fisher, Grothendieck, Dirac, Kolmogorov, Weyl, Fermi.
Thanks for your engagement here. I really enjoyed reading your fascinating comment. Hadn't heard of Walter Pitts. Thanks, Joe.
Von Neumann was a universalist like Gauss, Euler, Archimede or Newton, a "great mathematician" (you can easily find a definition abkut this somewhere on the net) This guys realized things wich tops above any scientist of the history. Their "opera" is immortal, the rest will pass with time, their theorems and discoveries about the law of nature will stand forever
@giomot9737
I agree in a sense but that one paradigm-shifting discovery eluded him. Why is that? Perhaps bad luck but also perhaps because there was a lack of intuitive genius.
@@giomot9737 Thanks for your comment and insight. What can you find a definition about somewhere sorry?
@@travisspalding4713 Thanks for your comment and engagement! What was the one paradigm-shifting discovery?
John von Neumann = smartest person in history? 🤔
Hey David, thanks for your comment. Do you reckon he was? If not, who would you put above him? 😊
@@thehumanpodcastofficial Von Neumann was probably in the top ten smartest people ever. The smartest person in history was probably Isaac Newton or Christian Heinrich Heineken.
This isn't about Newton or Einstein???
Thanks for your comment. Would you say that both are definitely smarter than Von Neumann? Would be great to hear your thoughts why.
@@thehumanpodcastofficial John von Newmann was a great mathematician and a talented computer scientist, but Newton and Einstein were not only great mathematicians (Newton invented calculus), but great physicists too. Newton discovered the three Laws of Motion, and Einstein defined Relativity, the relationship of energy to matter (E=MC²), and received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Photoelectric Effect. Also, "smarter" isn't a scientific term.
@@davidhess6593 Interesting, thanks. Would you say Von Neumann made contributions to physics via quantum mechanism though? Also, if smarter isn't a scientific term, perhaps intelligence is?
@@thehumanpodcastofficial Perhaps.
If John liked guys he would be famous