This week I had the pleasure of speaking with author Ananyo Bhattacharya about his recent book ‘The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann’. We talk about von Neumann’s upbringing in Budapest, his years pursuing two degrees in two different universities simultaneously, his work in Göttingen, admiration of Gödel, relationship with Turing, work on game theory, contributions to the Manhattan Project, fascination with computing and much much more.

I thoroughly enjoyed both our conversation and the book, which I join many others in highly recommending for anyone interested in the history of mathematics. The book is available everywhere, including Amazon*, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart and so on. There are also audio- and e-book versions available, e.g. via Amazon*.

Ananyo is an accomplished writer who has worked at both Nature and The Economist and holds a Ph.D. in biophysics. You can follow him on Twitter @ananyo.

Related Privatdozent Newsletters

• The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann, May 19th 2021

• The Martians of Budapest, Oct 2nd 2021

• Can We Survive Technology? — John von Neumann (1955), Nov 1st 2021

• The Duties of John von Neumann’s Assistant in the 1930s, Jul 11th 2021

• John von Neumann’s Minimax Theorem (1928), Mar 26th 2021

* These are Amazon Affiliate links