Neumann Quotes
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Use "entropy" and you can never lose a debate, von Neumann told Shannon - because no one really knows what "entropy" is.
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More Neumann Quotes
Von Neumann languages do not have useful properties for reasoning about programs. Axiomatic and denotational semantics are precise tools for describing and understanding conventional programs, but they only talk about them and cannot alter their ungainly properties. Unlike von Neumann languages, the language of ordinary algebra is suitable both for stating its laws and for transforming an equation into its solution, all within the "language."
john backus— "Can Programming Be Liberated From the von Neumann Style?"[2], 1977 Turing Award Lecture, Communications of the ACM 21 (8), (August 1978): pp. 639-640
Neither Dirac nor von Neumann discussed his measurements in physical terms.
willis lamb— W. E. Lamb, Classical measurements on a quantum mechanical system, Nuclear Phys. B 6, 197-201 (1989).
As a mathematician, von Neumann was quick, brilliant, efficient, and enormously broad in scientific interests beyond mathematics itself. He knew his technical abilities; his virtuosity in following complicated reasoning and his insights were supreme; yet he lacked absolute self confidence.
stanislaw ulam— Chapter 4, Princeton Days, p. 76
In desperation I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, "How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?" I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, "Four." He said, "I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk." With that, the conversation was over.
freeman dyson— "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" in Nature 427 (22 January 2004), p. 297 (subscription required)
[John] von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!
richard feynman— Part 3: "Feynman, The Bomb, and the Military", "Los Alamos from Below", p. 132
A great deal of study has been directed to denning 'best decisions,' particularly since the pioneering work of mathematical statisticians (such as Wald), of mathematicians (such as von Neumann), of economists (such as Arrow )... The main effect of this development on the practice of OR has been the growing realization that there are decision objectives other than maximizing expected return and minimizing maximum loss. That is, in many practical situations there are criteria of optimality that are more appropriate than these two mentioned.
— p. 270 (The development of operations research as a science, 1956)
By the end of the war the new game theoretic methods that had been developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern were added to the toolkit and mathematical techniques that operations research scientists deployed. These proved very valuable, and game theoretic approaches took on great importance after the war.
— M. Fortun, and S.S. Schweber (1993) "Scientists and the Legacy of World War II: The Case of Operations Research (OR)." Social Studies of Science Vol 23, p. 604
By the end of the war the new game theoretic methods that had been developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern were added to the toolkit and mathematical techniques that operations research scientists deployed. These proved very valuable, and game theoretic approaches took on great importance after the war.
— M. Fortun, and S.S. Schweber (1993) "Scientists and the Legacy of World War II: The Case of Operations Research (OR)." Social Studies of Science Vol 23, p. 604
