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Happy Birthday, Von Neumann (And Linus!) 240

Posted by timothy 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!"
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Happy Birthday, Von Neumann (And Linus!) More

Happy Birthday, Von Neumann (And Linus!)

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  • Modren Computing (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:12PM (#7819310)
    Modren Computing

    He surely didn't invent the spellchecker!

  • Noyman! (Score:5, Informative)

    by willith ( 218835 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:15PM (#7819332) Homepage
    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.
    • "...sounds like "Von Noyman"..."
      Maybe in New York, but the rest of us would say "Von Nerman"

    • Re:Noyman! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:45PM (#7819471)
      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".
      • ...further proof that no matter how pedantic you are, there's always someone just itching to one-up you on Slashdot...
        • ... please remember to belittle folks on slashdot, so as to make sure they (the unwashed masses) are discouraged from such simple details as explicating what one was actually named to people interested in the results. Lord knows that because _I_ don't want to be remembered properly, nobody else should be.

          Damn, I'd hate it if I did anything cool and someone noticed.

          Or did you have a different point in mind?

      • Re:Noyman! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Charles Dodgeson ( 248492 ) <jeffrey@goldmark.org> on Sunday December 28, 2003 @03:24AM (#7820921) Homepage Journal
        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
        In Budapest at the time, a Yiddish-inflected German was probably as widespread as Hungarian. Budapest was a boom town around 1880-1910, with massive immigration of Jews from north and east, and German speakers seeking to make their fortune in this booming frontier town.

        Hungarians use the German pronunciation of this name. My wife's grandmother's maiden name was Neumann (no relation), and in modern Hungary (and certainly at the time) it is given the German pronunciation.

        His father had bought a minor nobility title
        There was an apocryphal story going around Budapest about how Janos' father acquired the title. He (Janos' father) had done some substantial service for the Emporer, and was asked what he wanted, he (Janos' father) said that there was nothing the Emporer could do for him, but his father (Janos' grandfather) always wanted a title. By such means, as the story goes, Janos' father inherited a title instead of buying one. Again, this story is almost certainly apocryphal. Purchasing of minor titles was a standard practice in those days.
        To his friends, "John von Neumann" was actually "Neumann Janos".
        In the US he was called "Jonny" by his friends. Whether he went by "Janos" or something like "Jancsi" in Hungarian is not something that I have any stories about, apocryphal or otherwise.

        One great mark of Neumann was what it really means to be multidisplinary. Often when you have, say, a computational linguist, the linguists will say, "well, he doesn't really understand linguistics deeply, but I guess his good in CS" and the CS people will say, "Well, he doesn't really understand CS deeply, but I guess he knows a lot about linguistics." With Neumann, the situation is the opposite. CS claims him as one of their own, mathematics claims him as one of their own, physics claims him as one of their own, and while nobody claims him as an economist, his work a foundation of an important subdiscipline of economics.

        • To quote (ans translate) the Heise News article on Johnny's birthday: "Whether Janos or Jancsi, Johann or Johannes, John oder Johnny [...] born as Johann Ludwig Neumann von Margitta." So you are all wrong, it's the von Margitta architecture ;-)
          • That would explain why I never heard a Hungarian use the "von Neumann" form of his name. Translating from the end of the fourth paragraph of this article [nepszabadsag.hu]

            His banker father earned a heritable title from the emporer for his contribution to the development of the Hungarian economy. And this is why he had the "von Margitta" [margittai] surname, from which (through the English practice) the world knows of him as "von Neumann".

        • ...and while nobody claims him as an economist, his work a foundation of an important subdiscipline of economics.

          Mainly game theory, which played and still plays an important role in risk management theory.

    • Or, if you're from the Prof. Pawagi school of pronounciation, John Von Neumann sounds like "nine one one"

  • Try Turing or Zuse (Score:5, Informative)

    by JoeF ( 6782 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:15PM (#7819334)
    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 [turing.org.uk], who laid the theoretical foundations, and Konrad Zuse [vt.edu], who built the first digital computer.
    • But the strongest case of all is from Al Gore.

    • Re:Try Turing or Zuse (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bender_ ( 179208 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:37PM (#7819432) Journal
      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.
    • Tommy Flowers [connected-earth.com] 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
      • Well, the colossus just applied a lot of rather simple prewired binary options to data read from an endless loop. It was quite fast, but very simple.

        Zuses computer already used floating point arithmetics and was able to execute a programs read from a spunched film strip.

    • Re:Try Turing or Zuse (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kakos ( 610660 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @08:20PM (#7819599)
      What about Alonzo Church, who probably has just as much of a claim as Turing, both having given equivalent and simultaneous solutions to the Entscheidungsproblem?

      • Re:Try Turing or Zuse (Score:4, Informative)

        by Pseudonym ( 62607 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @10:00PM (#7819911)

        The difference between Church and Turing's formulations is that Turing's was able to be implemented in hardware. (With, of course, a non-infinite random-access "tape".)

        Lambda calculus wasn't implemented in hardware until the 70s or 80s with the SKI machine.

        • Another big difference between the two is that lambda calculus is actually useful, while the Turing machine has some analytical -, but mostly entertainment value.

          By the way, I've never heard of Turing actually implementing his machine in hardware. It was a hardware design, implementable with pen and paper, but I don't think he actually went to the trouble of creating the machine. Got any refs for that?

          • By the way, I've never heard of Turing actually implementing his machine in hardware. It was a hardware design, implementable with pen and paper, but I don't think he actually went to the trouble of creating the machine. Got any refs for that?

            Try his biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma. It's pretty clear that he considered the Manchester-1 an implementation of his theoretical machine.

            BTW, I would dispute that Turing machines are "mostly entertainment value". They are an extremely valuable analytical to

            • Not to nitpick, (ok, granted, in order to nitpick), first you say:

              They are an extremely valuable analytical tool, because they're usually the easiest Turing-hard model of computation to implement in whatever theoretical construct that you're trying to prove is Turing-hard

              And then you say:

              it was straightforward to implement Turing machines in lambda calculus, but it took a couple of decades before theoreticians managed to formally implement lambda calculus in Turing machines

              Hence it didn't turn out

              • I think you misunderstood what I was saying.

                Lambda calculus is easier to implement stuff in, but Turing machines are easier to implement. I re-read what I wrote and that's definitely what I said.

                As an example, it's hard to implement full LC in the C++ template language (though you can get close for practical programming tasks), but it's straightforward to implement TMs. Hence, TMs are the tool of choice for showing that the template language is Turing-hard. This is true for most situations where you wa

                • Indeed, you are right, I was wrong, apologies.

                  (still nitpicking: didn't you mean Turing complete instead of Turing hard?)

                  • didn't you mean Turing complete instead of Turing hard

                    A system which is "Turing hard" can be used to implement a Turing machine. It is "Turing complete" if it can also be implemented on a Turing machine. It's the same as the difference between "NP-hard" and "NP-complete".

                    So yes, I meant "Turing hard", though for all of the systems we're talking about, they're also "Turing complete".

    • Imperial Japan deserve half of the credit. They invented the Zero.

    • Re: Try Turing or Zuse (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gidds ( 56397 ) <slashdot&gidds,me,uk> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @11:06PM (#7820126) Homepage
      Er, yes, but remember that they (like Tommy Flowers and Charles Babbage) aren't Americans and so, for most of your readership, don't exist...

    • Re:Try Turing or Zuse (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LX.onesizebigger ( 323649 ) on Sunday December 28, 2003 @12:28AM (#7820419) Homepage

      It appears you overlooked the modern modifier. While Pascal, Babbage, Lovelace, Atanasoff, Turing, Aiken, Eckert, and Mauchley (to drop just a few names) were all pioneers in their own right, their programs were strictly hardware-implemented. To alter the program sequence, the machine had to be modified. The von Neumann machine was the first stored-program computer to use the memory-control unit-ALU with accumulator design still used today (Wilkes created the first stored-program computer with the EDSAC three years earlier), and thus revolutionized computing, turning it into what it is today, hence father of modern computing.

      Zuse's work was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin conducted by the Allies in 1944, so while certainly a pioneer, he cannot, unfortunately, be regarded in any way the father of computing as we know it today.

  • the Mother of Modern Computing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:18PM (#7819349)
    We can't let December pass without birthday greetings to the mother of modern computing.

    Ada Lovelace. [adahome.com] was born December 10, 1815. Happy Birthday, toots!

  • he's not the father of Modern Computing!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:23PM (#7819365)
    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.
  • That guy should get some friggin cash - he's sorely needed!

  • A hero for more than just computing (Score:3, Informative)

    by kevinatilusa ( 620125 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:37PM (#7819431)
    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.
    • One of the other computer pioneers, Turing, was driven to suicide by his gouvernment. He was sentenced to take drugs to "cure" homosexuality. Touch times for computer pioneers back then.

      Luckily Zuse lived up to a very old age and just died a few years ago.
    • Why would this make him a hero?
      • The reasoning behind the original poster's comment is that he gave his life (sort of) in defense of his country and way of life, same as any soldier. His weapons were slide rules and pencils instead of guns and grenades, but he paid the same price. I'm not sure I really buy that, but obviously that's what he meant.

        If you were trying to make a point about the morality of dropping nuclear weapons, I suggest a less cutesy way of doing it. On the list of ways to start a thought-provoking discussion of idea

        • I'm not sure what you're referring to now - all I asked was "Why would this make him a hero?" If that's button-pushing, then what isn't? The other comment I posted about being gay etc. was merely a reply to the anonymous reply to my question.
          • I'm not going to spend 30 minutes explaining it to you. Suffice it to say that it's not a good idea, on certainly highly-charged questions, to ask questions which imply the self-evident rightness of your own position. The only purpose to asking such questions is to provoke a fight, which is almost always exactly what happens. If that's what you wanted to do, fine; otherwise, you might try explaining your position instead. Of course, this sort of questioning has an honored tradition dating back to Socrat
      • The 70,000 instant casualties from each of the bombs seems huge, but pales when you consider:

        * 120,000 lives lost in the battle for Okinawa, which was just preparing foothold for the invasion of Japan

        * Think a conventional war can't get much bloodier? Over 800,000 lives were lost in the battle of Stalingrad.

        * The total toll from both bombs including aftereffects was about 250,000. This is about half a percent of the 50 million casualties of WW2.

        In the long run the atom bombs probably saved lives. They c
    • No no no no no, you're thinking of Dr. Manhattan, and he didn't die of cancer, he turned blue, and slowly disconnected from reality as he acquired Godlike powers over the next several decades.

  • I've got one of his notebooks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:41PM (#7819449) Homepage Journal
    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 once had brief possession of Bertrand Russell's jacket. He spilled wine on it, took it off, and neglected to reclaim it at the end of the function.

      It too was empty, so I filled it.

      [This has been an offtopic shaggy dog story of dubious amusing quality]

      KFG

    • I've got a pair of his shoes!

      He never owned or wore them - and I bought them in Marks & Spencer last week - but wow!

  • the mailman on "Von Sienfeld"?

  • Happy birthday, Linus! (Score:5, Informative)

    by deja206 ( 711205 ) * on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:48PM (#7819489) Homepage
    Wake up, today's Linus' 34th birthday!!!

    Gotta make a story submission...
    • Heh, the update to this story makes your post look pretty redundant, until I noticed who posted it :)
    • It's already 28th down here in NZ. I don't know if it's karma, sign from the above or something else but my, so far pretty stubborn, teenage son had just asked me to wipe Win98 of his PC and install Linux instead. I'm just glad that it happened on Linus' birthday.
    • to all Mods modding the parent as redundant, please dont, give the guy some credit.

      he submitted an adjustment and got it in the story blurb at the top - check the links - within 19mins of him posting this message, the story got updated :)

      Good job this isnt Microsoft, or the update would have taken 4 weeks and broken a percentage of the systems that read it ;)

  • A famous quote of his regarding the Russians: "If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at five o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?"

    A bit scary. He may have been brilliant, but I am glad we didn't take all his advice.

  • Von Neumann's other greatest hits (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:49PM (#7819493)
    Well known crypto-hawk who petitioned the President to make a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
  • Perhaps we should have a holiday. And I'm not just talking von Neumann -- Turing, Godel, Lovelave, Babbage, etc. Hell, we could even have Descartes in there and some Feynman for good measure. I'd be down for celebrating Universal Computing Day. Anyone else?

  • Von Neumann's Voice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sidles ( 735901 ) <jasidles@ g m a i l . com> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @08:07PM (#7819544)
    Here is a poignant recording of von Neumann's voice [washington.edu]:
    "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."

  • Game Theory too ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gradji ( 188612 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @08:16PM (#7819584)
    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.

    • What utter rubbish.

      Zero sum gain was an economic theory followed by the Spanish hundreds of years ago. It's what drove their acquisition of Inca gold and silver (and led to rampant inflation). The Spanish thought there was only so much "value" in the world and if they got some others must lose a corresponding amount.

      In contrast the English didn't subscribe to this view at all. They realised you can create value and that both sides in a trade can win.

      Wonder how much else of the parent post is just plai

      • Most ideas exist in the world before they are formalized by theorists. Certainly -- as the legend goes -- apples were falling from trees before Newton "discovered" gravity. But this does not make Newton's contribution (nor von Neumann's) trivial.

        If you read carefully, you will realize that my comment was referring to the fact that von Neumann helped formalize the study of zero sum games (e.g. chess). Although his work was not definitive or comprehensive, von Neumann's contribution did lay out the path
  • ...and of course the question came up. "That Neumann?" But as far as I know, they're not even related. Just as well really, I think studying under a guy with that many references in literature would seriously creep me out.

    Actually, the guy creeped me out anyway, because he'd been a professor for 30+ years and everything seemed to be so trivial to him, stuff that (at least at times) made my head spin. His behavior didn't exactly lessen the impression either, looked like he was nobility or something, high ab
    • His behavior didn't exactly lessen the impression either, looked like he was nobility or something, high above us mere mortals.

      Heheheheh. Much the way programmers on /. look at their users. Much the way the managers look at the programmers. Much the way CS majors look at accounting majors.

  • Now we probably wouldn't be here talking about all this stuff if it weren't for him.

    Yes. If it wasent for Linus, we wouldnt be talking about Linus.

  • When I tell co-workers that Linus is so young (a few months younger than me) I get a lot of suprised responses. It's as if everyone who has heard of Linux just from IBM commercials assumes that it was done by an older hacker. What can young inexperienced kids accomplish that's worth anything?

    Peace....

  • " Linus !!!! " (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mir322 ( 519212 )
    Thank you for Linux, happy birthday!"
    Shouldn't that be " Thank you Linus, happy birthday! " ??
    Not trying to start something here, but..
    ---
  • I mean, if that Neumann guy was the father of modeorn computing. Who in the world was the mother?

    What kind've exonuclear nomenclature techniques does this community use? I mean, it seems like they're just out to take the family out of family tree the board game!@!!!!!!

  • You'll have to pick another date :)

    (feliz cumpleanos a ti)
  • I never realized I shared a birthdate with such an important visionary! (Oh and that VonNeumann guy too. :)

    Of course, I'm only 28, but after 6 years of Slashdotting, I feel pretty darned old...
  • For an brief, nontechnical overview on von Neumann's life and his work, I can recommend "Prisoner's Dilemma" by William Poundstone. Apart from a short biography, it focuses on his work on game theory. Not very in-depth, but worth spending a rainy Sunday with.
  • "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.

  • Seinfeld? (Score:3, Funny)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @10:59PM (#7820109) Journal
    Isn't Von Neuman the fat, annoying neighbor of Seinfeld?
  • How many people think the vonnneumann story was just a ruse; perpetrated by the editors to mention linus' birthday without looking like a fan-boy?

    think about it. Vote below.

  • Whatever, it's 2:55 AM where I am, and I just got home sloppy drunk. Happy B'day Linus! Ypu've done us ALL a great service and we're all glad to offer up a drink to you wherever you may be tonight. I know I'd hit the packie and buy Linus a few rounds if he ever showed up in my neck of the woods.
  • For what (little) it's worth. I knew I shared Linus' birthday (or rather he mine, I've got a few years on him), but I didn't realize it was also Von Neumann's.

    Many happy returns all round, then.

  • So it's your birthday today. So what. On average 1/365.25 slashdot readers will have their birthday today.

    Please don't bore us with your pathetic "it's my birthday too" posts. NOBODY CARES!

  • Some researchers believe that the Maya were the first know to us that had computers.
    Large, mostly wooden mechanical devices operated by Lama towing power.
    Considering their achievements in astronomy and their highly organized culture I wouldn't be supprised.
  • I had a bottle neck named after me. Three cheers for the Von Neumann bottle neck.
  • Of course, December 28 is also the day of the slaughter of the innocent children [erols.com]: King Herodes heard of the messias being born and sought to stem this threat to his throne, and, failing to find the actual child, ordered that all children under 2 years old in Bethlehem be put to death.

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