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The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
By the time of his death in 1957 at the modest age of 53, the Hungarian polymath had not only revolutionized several subfields of mathematics and…
Jørgen Veisdal
May 19, 2021
18
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The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann
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The Martians of Budapest
The Martians of Budapest”, sometimes referred to as simply “The Martians” is a colloquial term used to describe a group of prominent Hungarian…
Jørgen Veisdal
Oct 2, 2021
11
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The Martians of Budapest
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When Wiener met Einstein (1925)
This issue narrates Norbert Wiener’s chance encounter with Albert Einstein in his own words as recounted to his sister Bertha in 1925. At the time of…
Jørgen Veisdal
Apr 20, 2021
4
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When Wiener met Einstein (1925)
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The Poincaré Conjecture (1904)
Poincaré began working on what is now considered to be the foundation of topology and algebraic topology in the 1890s with the work Analysis Situs…
Jørgen Veisdal
Aug 1, 2021
7
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The Poincaré Conjecture (1904)
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The Golden Age of Quantum Physics (1927)
The “most intelligent photograph ever taken”, as it is sometimes known, was captured during the Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and…
Jørgen Veisdal
Sep 3, 2021
7
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The Golden Age of Quantum Physics (1927)
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Oppenheimer’s Letter of Recommendation for Richard Feynman (1943)
Let’s journey back to November 1943. The Manhattan project is in its fourth year of operations, and J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Los Alamos Laboratory is…
Jørgen Veisdal
May 21, 2021
7
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Oppenheimer’s Letter of Recommendation for Richard Feynman (1943)
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On Norbert Wiener's Relationship with Bertrand Russell
The later “Father of Cybernetics” Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) first arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge in September of 1913. Traveling with him was…
Jørgen Veisdal
Mar 22, 2021
7
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On Norbert Wiener's Relationship with Bertrand Russell
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The Eccentricities of J. Robert Oppenheimer
As a child he collected rocks, wrote poetry and studied French literature. Never weighing more than 130 pounds, throughout his life he was a “tall and…
Jørgen Veisdal
Jul 23, 2021
7
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The Eccentricities of J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Einstein and Hilbert’s Relativity Race
The published version of a talk by mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943), dated the 20th of November 1915 is entitled ‘Die Grundlagen der Physik’ (“On…
Jørgen Veisdal
Jul 3, 2021
9
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Einstein and Hilbert’s Relativity Race
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Kurt Gödel's Brilliant Madness
Hungarian polymath John von Neumann (1903–1957) once wrote that Kurt Gödel was “absolutely irreplaceable” and “in a class by himself”. Describing his…
Jørgen Veisdal
Jun 21, 2021
5
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Kurt Gödel's Brilliant Madness
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Turing Uncomputability
As Leibniz suggested, we appear to live in the best of all possible worlds, where the computable functions make life predictable enough to be…
Jørgen Veisdal
Aug 13, 2021
7
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Turing Uncomputability
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The Duties of John von Neumann’s Assistant in the 1930s
"The job entailed such onerous duties that only someone with an iron constitution could survive. My constitution, it so happened, was not made by iron…
Jørgen Veisdal
Jul 10, 2021
8
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The Duties of John von Neumann’s Assistant in the 1930s
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