John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More

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Summary: The worldly secrets of John von Neumann
Review: Easily the worst scientific biography I've ever read. All themore pity, as John Von Neumann is a genuinely fascinating subject forstudy. Regrettably, MacRae is completely unqualified for the task of writing a biography on Von Neumann. By his own admission (page 138), he last took a course in high school mathematics around the age of 15 and it shows throughout the book (witness his ridiculous illustration of a Hilbert Space on pages 138-139). He also possesses no understanding of physics (for example, on page 131, he's characterizing general relativity as the theory "which explained the odd things that happen when something moves at near the speed of light" and on page 301 he lists quantum mechanics among subjects in which "simple linear equations had ruled"). Even in economics, which is his supposed specialty, he cannot provide any original insights. The first example he uses for game theory is well known - he lifts the Morra example from Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" without modification, and essentially lifts another example from another textbook. With his very limited background, MacRae can offer no real perspective on Von Neumann's works, and so he patches together quotes from other sources to do the job for him.

MacRae's lack of qualifications aren't by themselves a reason to avoid this book, as a suitably well footnoted synthesis of source material coupled with relevant interviews would have provided a certain amount of value. Unfortunately, there are no footnotes (just a bibliography) and most of the source material which MacRae does use is already readily accessible in less flawed and better written books. Furthermore, MacRae is so endlessly repetitive in several of his characterizations of Von Neumann, that it becomes downright nauseating. MacRae also performs a great disservice in deifying his subject by greatly overstating his influence and excusing any anecdotal flaws. Von Neumann was a great enough scientist that he doesn't need MaCrae's effusive and misleading depictions. One more warning: there is only one photograph in the entire book, besides the cover itself.

By far the biggest problem, however, comes from MacRae's approach to the book - he insists upon inserting so much of his own world views and dogma into the body of the book, that we no longer have a biography on Von Neumann - we have Von Neumann's life used as a vehicle for MacRae's own personal views on education, politics, the Japanese economy of the 1960's through the 1980's (I never expected to see this in a Von Neumann biography), and cold war history. He takes time out to provide slanted views of Bertrand Russell and Norbert Wiener, for no reason (they barely figure in the book beyond his distorted descriptions of them) other than to insinuate that their liberal viewpoints are due to poor parenting. In sum, the book's most fatal flaw is that there's entirely too much of MacRae, and not enough Von Neumann.

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Summary: The worldly secrets of John von Neumann
Review: It seems that as time passes and nuclear secrets are gradually declassified, we get longer and longer biographies of John von Neumann. MacRae's biography is helpful, partly because it is fairly recent, and partly because MacRae gives us a glimpse of the worldly side of John von Neumann. The book captures his social style, his special expertise at bluffing, his sense of academic showmanship, his political power -- and shows how adroitly he used that power and his own mystique to push through his technical insights and decisions.

Von Neumann was a trained chemical engineer. Although chemistry is usually remarked as the slightest of his credentials, he knew it and used it. This book includes the story of how he applied mathematics and chemistry to the development, delivery and control of explosive weapons - first chemical, and then nuclear.

Von Neumann's work on explosives is a common thread that runs through his work and pulls together many of his interests that - seen in isolation - seem amazingly disparate. His interests in computers, aerodynamics, parlour game theory and even meteorology were all rooted in or entrained by his fascination with explosive weapons. (For a thermonuclear weapon, for example, the weather is a delivery system for fallout.)

In 1938, von Neumann first became a consultant to the United States military, working at the Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland. He began by improving the aim of very large guns with explosive shells. It was a surprisingly complicated business because it involved winds aloft, turbulent flow, impacts, and expanding shock fronts of explosive charges. It was on one of his frequent trips to Aberdeen that he encountered one of the University of Pennsylvania engineers working on ENIAC. Von Neumann was unsatisfied with the analog computers then used for weapons work, and plunged into the problem of improving the nascent digital machine. Ultimately he created a digital computer at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. His purpose in building this particular machine was to use it to complete the design of the hydrogen bomb.

After the war began, von Neumann was sent to England to study the damage inflicted by German bombs during the blitz. He noticed the German bombs were not completely effective because they buried themselves before exploding. Von Neumann used this insight to invent the "air burst" explosive. Thereafter, allied bombs worldwide were fused to go off before they hit the ground. The technique vastly improved their destructive power. Hiroshima was an air burst. At Nagasaki, the bomb was an implosion weapon characterized at Los Alamos as "von Neumann's bomb" because of the implosive detonator he helped develop for it.

MacRae evidently admires von Neumann's accomplishments as a weaponeer, and as a political advocate of weapons development, but he does not quite convey von Neumann's personal sophistication and sense of scientific inquiry.

For example, in developing the digital computer von Neumann talked to a number of neurobiologists. For the most part he believed what they told him and adapted whatever he found useful. His Silliman lectures, reprinted as his book on The Computer and The Brain, includes his credulous precis on the neurobiology of the early 1950s. But von Neumann also noticed and questioned something few neurophysiologists bother themselves about - then or now - which is the fact that the retinal cells of the eye look backward. They are pointed toward the back wall of the eye, and not out at the world. Perhaps these cells see there a thin film diffraction pattern, and not the literal visual picture our brain shows us as an image of the world. Also, in a book by the editor of The Economist, one might expect a bit more on von Neumanns contributions to economics.

Withal, it is difficult to understand why such a civilized, curious, well spoken, socially adroit and erudite man was so intrigued by explosives. To try to make sense of von Neumann you can also read several other books - there exists no single coherent biography. Find "von Neumann and Weiner," two half-biographies in one volume by Heims; The superb Prisoner's Dilemma, by Poundstone; and for historical context, the Rhodes books on the making of the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs.

After von Neumann's death, his concepts of strategic games were highly elaborated at the RAND corporation, and ultimately became U.S. nuclear policy. MacRae touches on this legacy, but the best book on this great chunk of obscured American history is The Wizards of Armageddon, by Kaplan. It would be interesting to know if von Neumann's theory of parlour games was also used to formulate strategic policy for the Viet Nam disaster. It would not be surprising.

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Summary: Links mathematics, internetworking, humanity & productivity
Review: My father wrote this book after retiring from his career long job as The Economist's longest serving staff writer. Here are some comments on what other reviewers have said.

It's true my father never studied for a phd in economics; if you'd just served in world war 2, got a first in economics in Cambridge and been offered a job at The Economist, you'd probably not have seen any practical point in that either. ( If you want to go into who knows what about 21st C futures, internetworking,intangible assets and new economics, I'm sure we can link you to that at http://www.normanmacrae.com )

It may be that some of my father's admiration for Von Neumann also got blended with his world views. But Von Neumann's family -whom my father worked closely with - didn't want any of that blend diluted.

My father was aiming primarily to explain to everyone why Von Neumann was one of the 2 great mathematicians of the 20th century and what background great mathematicians grow up in. In trying to make that accessible to everyone, he clearly doesn't go into the depth of mathematics theory that might stimulate today's hundred greatest living mathematicians. Everyone else will probably find the mathematical content suitable for a biography which they want to learn from.

Moreover, Von Neumann was the first mathematician to insist that the subject's future lay mainly in teamwork facilitated by computing rather than individual mathematical power. Not every academic has understood that point the way Johy would have hoped.

chris macrae, [e-mail] Marketing Electronic Learning NETwork http://www.egroups.com/group/melnet2

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Summary: Interesting but scientifically shallow
Review: This biography of one of the most impressive scientists of this century is both interesting and well written. The author gives a precise and thoughtful account of vN's life. I especially liked the fact that he does not dwell too much on the usual stories (such as von Neumann's memory power, or his famous Princeton parties) but tries to go beyond the public image. The best part of the book, to my opinion, is the section that describes Hungary -and especially its high school system- at the beginning of this century. My main criticism is that the book is rather shallow when explaining the scientific contributions of vN. The author is a journalist and not a mathematician/physicists, and he does not do a terrible job at explaining science. This is especially true for the economics contributions of vN. It is very clear to me that the author does not understand very well the progresses made by modern economic theory thanks to vN contributions (utility theory and game theory).The author, obsessed with Japan and competition, has comments with respect to the academic economics profession (whom I belong to...) that can probably be best explained by the fact that he is a PhD dropout. Anyway, this is very interesting book that I recommend to those interested in the evolution of mathematics, physics and technical warfare (but NOT economics!) in the XXth century.

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Summary: The Influential Man of the 2oth Century
Review: This reissue of the original Pantheon book first published in 1992 is long overdue. John von Neuman is often considered the contemporary, theoretical scientist most highly regarded after Einstein. Nobel laureats routinely turned to this man for assistance with complex problems they couldn't resolve. "When scientific groups at Los Alamos and elsewhere heard von Neuman was coming, 'they would set up all of their advanced mathmatical problems like ducks in a shooting gallery. Then he would arrive and systematically topple them over.'" This biography is a rich, well researched, and readable portrait. This is not a surprize as the author, Norman Macrae, was the principal editor of the "Economist" for over twenty years. Macrae gives insights and feeling for a man who could multiply eight figure numbers by eight figure numbers in his head [!], quote verbatim from "Tale of Two Cities" and the "Encyclopedia" and write and fluently speak Latin, Greek, German, Hungarian, French, English and some Italian. All this from a man "with effortless wit" and a vast recollection of "risque" stories. It will be subsequent generations that thank Norman Macrae for this spendid biography of the man who pioneered or participated in the major scientific and political events of this past century. John von Neuman not only advised politicians in the Western World on victorious strategy in the Cold War, he made significant contributions to economic theory, game theory, artificial intelligence, meterology, nuclear physics, and mathematics. Bravo for a book thirty years in the making and eight years out of print.