Neumann János

John von Neumann (1903-1957)

John von Neumann was born in Budapest into an upper middle class family which afforded him an education at a private school in Zürich Switzerland. During the 1920s he studied higher math and logic at universities in Berlin and Budapest (at the Technical University of Budapest "Muszaki Egyetem" where one can find a statue of him). Sensing the dangers of rising anti-Semitism and desiring more freedom of theoretical research Neumann left Europe for the United States to join the faculty of Princeton University in New Jersey. Here he was able to advance his theory of game logic better known as "Game Theory". Although it was a French Mathematician Emile Borel who first explored the concept Neumann was the first to develop a full theory. Game Theory is a mathematical (logic) oriented system of analysis of any particular situation (game or interaction) where a conflict of interst exists with the purpose in mind of finding out what optimal choices (moves or reactions) exist that given certain conditions will bring about an outcome closest to the one desired by the player or party. Today it is used extensively by scientists and economists.

John von Neumann became an associate of the Institue for Advanced Study in Princeton New Jersey in 1933 and with relatively unlimited means at hand he was able to work on many different projects. Among them is the one project that even Bill Gates of Microsoft will acknowledge forever changed the world. That was Neumann's creation of a digital storage and retrieval system that first allowed computers to be used for multifunctional purposes such as word processing and strategic defense planning. In effect Neumann invented the basic system behind all ROM-based computers (virtually every computer in use today)! As if Game Theory and flexible stored programming were not enough Neumann who was made a U.S. citizen in 1937 was instrumental in ending World War II by virtue of the fact that he developed most of the mathematical projections concerning the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. During his years at Los Alamos he worked with Oppenheimer and Edward Teller (inventor of the Hydrogen Bomb). He was a friend of Einstein. In 1956 a year before his fatal heart-attack the Atomic Energy Commission awarded him the Enrico Fermi Award. Neumann died at the relatively young age of 54.