John Von Neumann's Biography

John Von Neumann was a Hungarian-American. He was born December 28th, 1903, then he later died February 8, 1957, at age 53. John Von Neumann worked in the fields of physics, mathematics, and computer science. He was regarded as the “foremost mathematician of his time. Neumann was also considered one of the last representatives of the great mathematicians”. John like Euler, Gauss, and Hilbert, was a pioneer of the operator theory to quantum mechanics. John von Neumann was born Neumann János Lajos to a wealthy, Jewish family.

His Hebrew name was Yonah. Von Neumann was born in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the eldest of three brothers; his two younger siblings were Michael and Nicholas. His father, Neumann Miksa (Max Neumann in English) was a banker, who held a doctorate in law. John's mother was Kann Margit (Margaret Kann in English). John Von Neumann was a child prodigy. When he was 6 years old he could divide two 8-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. By the age of 8, John von Neumann was familiar with languages English, French, German, Italian, and Hungarian. Also by age 8, he was familiar with Differential and integral calculus. At the age of 15, he began to study advanced calculus. By the age of 19, John von Neumann had published two major mathematical papers, the second of which gave the modern definition of ordinal numbers, which superseded Georg Cantor's definition. He later won the Eötvös Prize, a national prize for mathematics.

John von Neumann and his father decided that the best career path was to become a chemical engineer. This was not something that John von Neumann had much knowledge of. So it was arranged for him to take a two-year non-degree course in chemistry at the University of Berlin, after which he sat for the entrance exam to the prestigious ETH Zurich, which he passed in September 1923. At the same time, John von Neumann also entered Pázmány Péter University in Budapest, as a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics. For his thesis, he chose to produce an axiomatization of Cantor's set theory. He passed his final examinations for his Ph.D. Soon after graduating from ETH Zurich in 1926. He then went to the University of Göttingen on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to study mathematics.

During World War 2 John von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project. Neumann was an expert in nonlinear physics of shock waves and hydrodynamics. Neumann worked on atomic bombs. Neumann helped find a target to use the “Fat Boy” atomic bomb, he strongly argued about not bombing Tokyo. Neumann also calculated the calculations for the bomb drop, like the total dead, how far the bomb would impact, etc. My opinion on John von Neumann is that first off he was smart as heck. He was smarter than me when he was around 10. I think he had a very wonderful life. I mean like he got to be part of history when he helps make The Fat Boy and helped choose a location for the bomb to be dropped. Also, it said he was born into a wealthy family, that was probably a nice Hanukkah. My overall opinion on John von Neumann is that he was a great man, was lucky to be gifted with his brain, and his part in the Manhattan project.