Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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!"

13 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Modren Computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Modren Computing

    He surely didn't invent the spellchecker!

    1. Re:Modren Computing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      By Slashdot standards, spellcheckers aren't just modren, they're positively futruistic.

  2. 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Also remember, kids, that Neumann was Hungarian, not German. Born and schooled in Budapest, Hungary. The name is Germanic solely because at the time (before World War I) Hungary was part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. His father had bought a minor nobility title, and since Austria was the dominant half of the Monarchy (the ruling house, the Habsburgs were Austrian), the Germanic-sounding version was used more widely. To his friends, "John von Neumann" was actually "Neumann Janos".

  3. 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 Bender_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Interesting that you mention this combination, because even though Zuses computer was very advanced, it was not Turing complete.

      Apparently ENIAC was neither, so von Neumanns contribution to the EDSAC may have indeed resultet in the first Turing complete machine.

    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.

  4. 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!

  5. 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?
  6. he's not the father of Modern Computing!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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

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

    Gotta make a story submission...

  8. Von Neumann's Voice by sidles · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Here is a poignant recording of von Neumann's voice:
    "Those of you present who have lived with this field, and who have lived with and suffered with computing machines of various sorts, and know what kind of regime it is to invest in one, I'm sure have appreciated the fact that it appears that this machine has been completely assembled less than two months ago, has been run on problems less than two weeks ago, and yesterday already ran for four hours without making a mistake! Those of you who have *not* been exposed to computing machines, and who do not have the desolate feeling which goes with living with their mistakes, will appreciate what it means that a computing machine, after about two weeks of breaking in, has really a faultless run of four hours. It is completely fantastic on an object of this size; I doubt it has ever been achieved before, and it is an enormous reassurance regarding the state of the art and regarding the complexities to which one will be able to go in the future, that this has been achieved."
  9. Game Theory too ... by gradji · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    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 ... von Neumann, along with Dantzig and Kanotorovich, helped develop the field of linear/mathematical programming and, more generally, operations research.

    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.

    --