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Happy Birthday, Von Neumann (And Linus!)

Posted by timothy on from the what-have-the-romans-done-for-us dept.

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!"

12 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Noyman! by willith · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Noyman! by Bender_ · · Score: 4, Informative

      More information about Neumann:

      http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/VonNeumann.html
      http://www.neumann.com/
      http://www.mbi.ufl.edu/~vetneumann
      http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathemati cians/Von_Neumann.html
      http://www.math.columbia.edu/~neumann/
      http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/vonNeumann.html
      http://www.karto.ethz.ch/neumann/
      http://www.rit.edu/~drk4633/vonNeumann/
      http://www.fsm-a.org/neumann

  2. Try Turing or Zuse by JoeF · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Try Turing or Zuse by Pseudonym · · Score: 3, Informative

      The difference between Church and Turing's formulations is that Turing's was able to be implemented in hardware. (With, of course, a non-infinite random-access "tape".)

      Lambda calculus wasn't implemented in hardware until the 70s or 80s with the SKI machine.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re:Try Turing or Zuse by cognibrain · · Score: 5, Informative

      However, it seems that there's some confusion in this thread between "Turing Machine" (described in the famous 1936 paper) and the so-called "Turing Test" (described in the famous 1950 paper). The 1950 paper discussed machine intelligence, and Turing had the ingenious idea of replacing the (vague and contentious) question "Can Machines Think?" with the (less vague) question "Can a Machine win the 'Imitation Game'?" It's possible (given the dates) that Turing knew of Asimov's story, and that the idea for the 'Imitation Game' came from it.

    3. Re:Try Turing or Zuse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Rojas showed that Zuse's electromechanical Z3 (and by inference, the mechanical Z1 of the same architecture) is universal in the Turing sense in a 1998 IEEE article.

  3. the Mother of Modern Computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    We can't let December pass without birthday greetings to the mother of modern computing.

    Ada Lovelace. was born December 10, 1815. Happy Birthday, toots!

  4. Re:Happy Birthday! by Wooky_linuxer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, computers are indeed big and fast calculators (and today they put out a lot of heat also). It was hard to imagine that by calculating so fast they could do the sort of things they do today.

    Modren Computing, that's it.

    --
    Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
  5. A hero for more than just computing by kevinatilusa · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:A hero for more than just computing by Bender_ · · Score: 2, Informative

      One of the other computer pioneers, Turing, was driven to suicide by his gouvernment. He was sentenced to take drugs to "cure" homosexuality. Touch times for computer pioneers back then.

      Luckily Zuse lived up to a very old age and just died a few years ago.

  6. Happy birthday, Linus! by deja206 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wake up, today's Linus' 34th birthday!!!

    Gotta make a story submission...

  7. Von Neumann's other greatest hits by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well known crypto-hawk who petitioned the President to make a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.