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Happy Birthday, Von Neumann (And Linus!)
noims writes "Sunday is the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Von Neumann, the man with one of the strongest claims to the title of Father of Modern Computing. Although, as noted at the time by Mark Stanley of Freefall, several sources indicate that it may have been December 3rd." Update: 12/28 01:07 GMT by T : deja206 writes "Today (December 28, CET) also is Linus Torvalds' 34th birthday. Now we probably wouldn't be here talking about all this stuff if it weren't for him. Thank you for Linux, happy birthday!"
Modren Computing
He surely didn't invent the spellchecker!
Weren't the Modrens the lawful neutral outer plane guys in AD&D?
Most people saw computing only as making a bigger and faster calculator.
Its achievments made by people like this that truly allow us to advance in this day and age! Hats off to those who "think outside the box".
Now, if only I can get Kcalc to stop calculating in HEX.
Remember, kids--auf Deutsch, "eu" is pronounced "oy". Hence, "Von Neumann" sounds like "Von Noyman".
This has been a public service announcement from my high school German class, about which I sometimes still have nightmares.
the man with one of the strongest claims to the title of Father of Modren Computing
There are two people with stronger claims: Alan Turing, who laid the theoretical foundations, and Konrad Zuse, who built the first digital computer.
Ada Lovelace. was born December 10, 1815. Happy Birthday, toots!
LOL!
And for those that will miss the reference when the story is surely ammended:
"Sunday is the one hundreth anniversary of the birth of John Von Neumann, the man with one of the strongest claims to the title of Father of Modren Computing. Although, as noted at the time by Mark Stanley of Freefall, several sources indicate that it may have been December 3rd."
I'm 21 now.
I AM!!!!
*gasp*
(cue cheesy soap opera music)
Yes that's right.. 67 years ago, I was at a party. John was there with his wife, Mechanical Computing. She wasn't the youngest girl in the room, but damned if she wasn't the HOTTEST. Round perfect hips, pert hand-sized breasts, and beautiful curly paper-tape for hair.
I'd been admiring her from afar.. but my close friendship with John meant I would never get to act on my impulses. Oh sure, I bought a new adding machine every year, even though I hardly ever used the infernal contraptions. I did it for HER.
When our eyes met, I knew she felt the same about me. And she understood that restraint was the only appropriate action.
But tonight John was being even more obnoxious than usual. Get a few glasses of champagne in the man he wouldn't shut about "uncertainty in the Game Theory" and "Axiomatizations of Expected Utility" and "if Morgenstern where here, he'd f*cking KICK your ASS, 101% probability!"
Mecha was crying again. She hated it when he was like this. Finally he passed out in the bathroom, a paper by Nash folded into a triangle on his head.
I had to do something. I put my arm around her. We were alone in a bedroom, her husband passed out just two doors down.
We made love for hours. The non-protected kind of love.
Well, nature took it's course, and 9 months later, she had a cute little boy with vacuum tubes for ears. She named him: Modern Computing. Sure, people talked.. "we didn't know John has an electronic streak.. it must come from his grandpa"...
But we knew what happened. By then John had started a program to control his drinking, and he and Mecha where very happy together. That night we had gotten our lust out of our system, and Mecha and I didn't speak to each other much.
So that's how I became the father of Modern Computing.
Funny as hell...
'parent' post is offtopic, this article is about MODREN Computing, not Modern Computing.
of what the modren world was comin' to.
Oooooklahoma!
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
That guy should get some friggin cash - he's sorely needed!
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
In addition to his work with computers, von Neumann helped develop the atomic bomb for the United States during World War II, exposing himself to a great deal of radiation in the progress.
Within 15 years he was dead from cancer.
Not quite my proudest possession, but I've
got one of his notebooks. It doesn't actually
have any writing in it, however. A friend
works at the Library of Congress manuscript
division. When papers are donated, any
non-archival materials are discarded, so she
gave me one of his *blank* notebooks.
[This is an amusing anecdote. Had this
been an actual troll, you would have felt
cold steel piercing your lip.]
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Tommy Flowers who in 1943 built the Colossus machine, which as well as being quick was, more importantly programmable and so was the precursor to the modern computer. Oh, and it also helped crack Germany's WWII codes.
It was destroyed, as were the blueprints, at the end of the war for secrecy/security reasons.
However, i would like to make a case that this was quite possibly the 'mother of all computers'.
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
- Albert Einstein
the mailman on "Von Sienfeld"?
What?
Wake up, today's Linus' 34th birthday!!!
Gotta make a story submission...
A famous quote of his regarding the Russians: "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at five o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"
A bit scary. He may have been brilliant, but I am glad we didn't take all his advice.
i don't get it, why is the parent post modded "troll" - this AC is stating nothing but fact!
Well known crypto-hawk who petitioned the President to make a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
who da fudge packer niggah! you da fudge packer!
Perhaps we should have a holiday. And I'm not just talking von Neumann -- Turing, Godel, Lovelave, Babbage, etc. Hell, we could even have Descartes in there and some Feynman for good measure. I'd be down for celebrating Universal Computing Day. Anyone else?
is this the AC behind penis cat?
yeah
Along with modern computer science, Von Neumnann also made contributions in several other areas of applied mathematics that are currently major areas of research and development.
... von Neumann, along with Dantzig and Kanotorovich, helped develop the field of linear/mathematical programming and, more generally, operations research.
For example -- although Nash got the book and movie treatment as well as the Nobel -- the pioneering work on the modern mathematical treatment of games ("game theory") is considered to be "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" (1944) written by Von Neumann and economist Oscar Morgenstern. Among their contribution include the concept of a zero sum game and the "minimax theorem."
Much closer to computer science
Of course, all three of these fields are related, with many of the same basic tools applicable to all three. But the fact that one man found so many seemingly different applications for the same basic matheamtical tools is still amazing. Regardless of whether Von Neumann was the father of modern computer science (personally, I lean toward Turing), I think we should follow the spirit of the original post and remember the birth of one of 20th Century's trule great thinkers.
...and of course the question came up. "That Neumann?" But as far as I know, they're not even related. Just as well really, I think studying under a guy with that many references in literature would seriously creep me out.
Actually, the guy creeped me out anyway, because he'd been a professor for 30+ years and everything seemed to be so trivial to him, stuff that (at least at times) made my head spin. His behavior didn't exactly lessen the impression either, looked like he was nobility or something, high above us mere mortals.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Yes. If it wasent for Linus, we wouldnt be talking about Linus.
but who's Linus and why do we care about him?
When I tell co-workers that Linus is so young (a few months younger than me) I get a lot of suprised responses. It's as if everyone who has heard of Linux just from IBM commercials assumes that it was done by an older hacker. What can young inexperienced kids accomplish that's worth anything?
Peace....
Celebrate Excellence!
Thank you for Linux, happy birthday!"
Shouldn't that be " Thank you Linus, happy birthday! " ??
Not trying to start something here, but..
---
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
... going baaaaack toooo Maaas-sa-chu-sets!
Sweet :)
Adopt a Penis Cat Today. (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/6793/)
/\_/\ .| .| .|
< o.o >
> - <
8=m=====m=D
|.
|.
|.
\_ _/
^/ | \^
|
`'
What kind've exonuclear nomenclature techniques does this community use? I mean, it seems like they're just out to take the family out of family tree the board game!@!!!!!!
Many Thanks,
Luke
You'll have to pick another date :)
(feliz cumpleanos a ti)
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I never realized I shared a birthdate with such an important visionary! (Oh and that VonNeumann guy too. :)
Of course, I'm only 28, but after 6 years of Slashdotting, I feel pretty darned old...
n/t
Kent Brockman: Here is a reenactment of Jebediah killing a bear with his bear hands. . . . . . Although later accounts indicate that the bear probably killed him.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
It was funny. Laugh!
It's my birthday, too. I'm 25. How old is Linus?
I coulda written my post correctly, but I was high. If you can't understand it then I'll know why, 'cos I got high. x3
For an brief, nontechnical overview on von Neumann's life and his work, I can recommend "Prisoner's Dilemma" by William Poundstone. Apart from a short biography, it focuses on his work on game theory. Not very in-depth, but worth spending a rainy Sunday with.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
I want to trade you screen legend Anthony Quinn's undershirt. He took this off to do sit-ups in the park and I nabbed it.
It's my final offer.
All we need now is Linus's SSN and mother's maiden name, and we're golden.
"Now we probably wouldn't be here talking about all this stuff if it weren't for him"
This comment is spot on - had Linus not been born we would likely NEVER have discussed his birthday.
Isn't Von Neuman the fat, annoying neighbor of Seinfeld?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Turing's famous 1950 paper Link missing from previous post.
Your joke, about the, how you say, American TV show, is most amusing.
Let me see your papers.
Nothing wrong you say? I will decide that.
Unfortunately, your papers are not in order. Please come with me. Schultz!
Hey, its my birthday too. I think you should put happy birthday to me too! ;)
Bigbiff http://www.exxtreme-linux.org
Yeah, well if Al Gore hadn't sued MacDonalds after he ordered some coffee, took his pants off, and poured it all over his legs, AND ended up with a billion dollars in "damages", we wouldn't make fun of him!
omfg, then i stop wanting to be an american!
[i have an opinion and i am not afraid to use it]
Now we need someone equally giving and selfeless as Linus to put GNU-AI into Linux before it's "invented" elsewhere and patented. To the victor goes the spoils. I hope we all win. Just think of the legal battles against AI-backed efforts to keep AI in the hands of the few once its existence is known of.
I've heard it said that the Linux development team is the largest collaborative project in the world or something. Many of these experts should make an open list of algorithms which exhibit behavior likely to be useful for AI, and the open development corps should be invited to build it. Think prior art. We need to ensure we'll have it if someone else discovers it first. But as long as we realize there's a race, with N times the developers and the bottom-up nature of y(our) organizational model (and the mryiad of possibilities this allows), we can beat them to this prize and the ones to follow.
Sorry for the off-topic rant, but I couldn't find the paranoid AI / anti-commercial-exploitation category. Birth of the computer and Linux-open source connection is the best I could do.
Happy birthday.
And thanks for all!!!
...further proof that no matter how pedantic you are, there's always someone just itching to one-up you on Slashdot...
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Damn, I'd hate it if I did anything cool and someone noticed.
Or did you have a different point in mind?
I forget what 8 was for.
First, there is no such work by Asimov.
Second, the pertinent Turing paper was published in 1936.
How many people think the vonnneumann story was just a ruse; perpetrated by the editors to mention linus' birthday without looking like a fan-boy?
think about it. Vote below.
Whatever, it's 2:55 AM where I am, and I just got home sloppy drunk. Happy B'day Linus! Ypu've done us ALL a great service and we're all glad to offer up a drink to you wherever you may be tonight. I know I'd hit the packie and buy Linus a few rounds if he ever showed up in my neck of the woods.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Narrator: Like the cleaning of a house ... It Never Ends. With Gabriela DeFarge as Gabriela St. Farge. Allegra Hamilton as Sister Bernadette and Roxy Monoxide. And as Dr. Tad Winslow, Moe Szyslak.
Lisa: I don't know if I'll be able to accept Moe as Dr. Tad Winslow.
Marge:Well, I'm going to keep watching as long as they have shocking story twists and endless pillow talk.
It pan-handles the question - who's the father of "historic" computing then? Also, who's the second cousin on the mother's side?
I've got a pair of his shoes!
He never owned or wore them - and I bought them in Marks & Spencer last week - but wow!
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
For what (little) it's worth. I knew I shared Linus' birthday (or rather he mine, I've got a few years on him), but I didn't realize it was also Von Neumann's.
Many happy returns all round, then.
-- Alastair
LINUX_REBOOT_MAGIC2 - I wonder what the folks at the civil registry office said when his daddy came in to register him with that birth date. Errr - nevermind.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
So it's your birthday today. So what. On average 1/365.25 slashdot readers will have their birthday today.
Please don't bore us with your pathetic "it's my birthday too" posts. NOBODY CARES!
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Well, one should ask himself what made the computer possible ? Was it the hardware or was it binary arithmetics (the software). Without these arithemtics no machines would have been possible.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), German multi-genius (Philosopher, Lawyer, Politician, Mathematician, Linguist, Historian and Inventor) was the invenotr of binary arithmetics.
Having seen Pascal's computing-machine, he started building his own (1671-1674), which was a continuation of Pascal's.
Inspired by his work on this machine he tried to find something he would call a 'Universal Language', a language, that should make it possible to express oneself without doubt. Having found for what he seeked he wrote in a letter, dating January 2, 1697 to his friend, Duke (?) Rudolf of Braunschweig-Wolfenbuttel (now pronounce that):
(Please note, that I translated this from German myself, very quickly, very dirty, very freely, without being in posession of the talents and genius of the person I tried to translate)So, Leibniz was the inventor of binary arithmetics, the most basic level of all digital.
Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
You know what he wants for his birthday present? If you're a friend nearby, BUY HIM A PINT OF GUINNESS!
Guinness is his obsession. Happy birthday Linus, I'll buy you a pint when I see you.
... and don't forget about that, either! It's not "Line-Ux".
Some researchers believe that the Maya were the first know to us that had computers.
Large, mostly wooden mechanical devices operated by Lama towing power.
Considering their achievements in astronomy and their highly organized culture I wouldn't be supprised.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I had a bottle neck named after me. Three cheers for the Von Neumann bottle neck.
scott
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
But I am no where as successful as them... but anywho... nice to share a great day with Linus!
Of course, December 28 is also the day of the slaughter of the innocent children: King Herodes heard of the messias being born and sought to stem this threat to his throne, and, failing to find the actual child, ordered that all children under 2 years old in Bethlehem be put to death.
What Would the Fab Five Do?
Your statements are false. von Neumann was a Jew and his name reflects this (yiddish). Hungarians did not change their names because Hungary was part of the Austrian empire.
# The%20Holocaust
/
Moreover Hungary is notorious for heavily persecuting Jews during the Holocaust. On March 24, 1944 President Roosevelt had to officially warn Hungary to refrain from anti-Jewish measures.
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/vjw/Hungary.html
"Of the original 825,000 Jews before the war, 260,000 Hungarian Jews survived and 565,000 perished."
This is about one tenth of the victims killed during the Holocaust.
564,500 Jews were sent to the various death-camps run by the Nazis. 438,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz alone.
Read the history, dude:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/hungarian-photos
http://www.jbuff.com/c090403.htm
Heheheheh. Much the way programmers on /. look at their users. Much the way the managers look at the programmers. Much the way CS majors look at accounting majors.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I'm 24 today. My parents got me explosives! (Well, extremely tiny ones.)
Many Jewish intellectuals left Hungary in the 1930s because Hungary started to severely limit the percentage of Jews gaining university or government positions. In fact, Hungary, to its shame, was an early adoptor of this kind of thing.
But Hungary only weakly complied with Nazi requirements to kill or deport Jews. It was only in the last year the war (when Hungary switched sides, and went from being a German ally to being occupied by the Germans) that the fastest deportation of Jews occurred. The Nazi's had installed the native Nyilas Kereszt (Arrow Cross) thugs, who engaged in probably some of the most brutal treatment of Jews of the entire war.
As horrific as those number are, I strongly suspect that they compare favorably to what happened in surrounding Central European countries. Also remember that many suriviving Jews did choose to return to Hungary after the war.My great-great-uncle was not so lucky. In the early 1930s, his brother in America (my great-grandfather) tried to persuade him to stay in the US after a visit he made. But this uncle reported that he was a decorated officer of the Hungarian Army from WWI, and was throughly integrated in to the Hungarian elite, that this whole thing would "blow-over" and he wasn't going to flee his homeland. Well, he and his family did not survive. These Jews did not see their friends and neighbors as threats.
Still, I don't think that Hungarian Jews blamed Hungarian society as a whole. They blamed the gang of thugs who had power only because the German occupiers put them there.
It would be foolish for me to claim that anti-Jewish feeling wasn't and isn't present in Hungary, but in Central Europe in the 20th century Hungary was definitely one of the better places to be a Jew or a Gypsy.
Thinking in terms of a "good list" and "bad list" of countries in this respect is easy, but wrong.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
I'm aware that the Neumann family had Jewish origins, sure. I'm also aware that they weren't practicing the religion very deeply (if at all), the religious holidays were more like trans-denominational family get-togethers for them.
As for "Hungarians did not change their names because Hungary was part of the Austrian empire" -- care to back that up? There are even records of infant males being given female names so that they avoid being drafted into the Austrian army when the time comes. If that happened, why would the much more commonplace occurrence of using the Germanic version instead of the Hungarian version not happen?
Remember also that this was well before WWI. Nazis came several decades later.
So yes, the Neumanns had Jewish origins. They didn't actually observe the religion. Which would still not have saved them from the Nazis.
Your point about heavy Hungarian persecution of Jews rings true. That was a very shameful era, the Hungarian "csendorseg" (think French gendarmerie, or police) and administration willfully helping the occupying Nazis round up Jews and send them off to their death in death-camps or from forced labor. It happened, and no Hungarian is proud of it.