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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!
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!
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?
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.
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...
Well known crypto-hawk who petitioned the President to make a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
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.
Yes. If it wasent for Linus, we wouldnt be talking about Linus.
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
You'll have to pick another date :)
(feliz cumpleanos a ti)
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
"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.
First, there is no such work by Asimov.
Second, the pertinent Turing paper was published in 1936.