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Eccentricity

The Beautiful Life of John Forbes Nash, Jr.
Mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr (1928-2015). was born in Bluefield, West Virginia in 1928. He died in a car crash in New Jersey on the 23rd of May…
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Jørgen Veisdal
John F. Nash Jr.'s Game of "Hex" (1949)
“Oh, by the way, what was it that they were playing?” asked von Neumann. “Nash,” answered Tucker, allowing the corners of his mouth to turn up ever so…
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Jørgen Veisdal
1
The Anarchist Abstractionist — Who was Alexander Grothendieck?
Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck was born in 1928 to anarchist parents who left him to spend the majority of his formative years with foster…
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Jørgen Veisdal
2
The Mathematical Nomad, Paul Erdős
When asked how to best describe his friend Paul Erdős (1913–1996)’, mathematician Joel Spencer (1946-) once wrote the following: “Mathematical truth is…
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Jørgen Veisdal
The Absent-Minded Father of Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener
“When we met, was I walking to the faculty club or away from it? I’m wondering, because in the latter case I’ve already had my lunch” American…
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Jørgen Veisdal
2
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…
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Jørgen Veisdal
2
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…
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Jørgen Veisdal
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…
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Jørgen Veisdal
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…
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Jørgen Veisdal
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…
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Jørgen Veisdal
1
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…
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Jørgen Veisdal
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