Jump to content

Talk:John von Neumann

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Reetside (talk | contribs) at 07:04, 8 May 2010 (→von Neumann invented both the computer and the internet: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Nuclear tests and cancer

I really think this is extremely speculative, to say that his cancer was "possibly caused by exposure to radiation during his witnessing of atomic bomb tests.

Macrae apparently says: "It is plausible that in 1955 the then-fifty-one-year-old Johnny's cancer sprang from his attendance at the 1946 Bikini nuclear tests." Macrae, p. 231."

But this also seems wildly speculative. There's no evidence that he was exposed to significant radiation or fallout at Operation Crossroads. There's no reason to suspect it at all, in fact. He was not a grunt assigned to cleaning ships or dealing with exposed materials. Like other top-level personnel he was almost certainly well out of harms way and surrounded by copious radiation monitoring devices. His relationship to the test is quite different than the soldiers who were actually doing the dirty and dangerous work, the populations where significant correlations between their occupational hazards and their later pathologies have been painstakingly established. In general, though, Crossroads was not an especially dangerous test, a far as they went (epidemiologically speaking).

I find it really irresponsible when people assume that because a few high-level bomb people died of cancer, it must have been because of their work on the bomb. It's completely unscientific, as unscientific as pointing out that a number of bomb people lived well into their 90s (Hans Bethe and Edward Teller, for example, much less someone like Herbert York, who attended a huge number of nuclear tests over the course of his life and lived to be 88) implies that nuclear tests are safe. It is not at all clear this is a Marie Curie scenario.

If there hasn't actually been a strong connection implied, or a strong reason to think the testing is related to the disease (as is the case with genuine downwinders), I think such baseless speculation is inappropriate for Wikipedia, even if other authors have felt fine making such baseless and unsupported speculations in their own works. The appeal of this sort of story is obvious (the bomb-maker killed by his own developments) but lacking good reason to suspect it is true, I think we should opt on the side of conservatism and not try to make some sort of maudlin moral story out of his painful and rare disease. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 21:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's a tricky problem. I believe the speculation is in several sources, but I am not familiar with John von Neumann biographies, just using the web. This is probably one of those cases where Wikipedia editors need to do a bit of original research before deciding what/how much to say.
For easy reference: We are talking about this edit. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is just as speculative of the editor at IP address 98.217.14.211 to posit the statement given in rebuttal to Macrae's text. The remark regarding Herbert York is clearly a non-sequitur. We should not be basing article content on an example of poor philosophical reasoning. This objection aside, I agree that this point about origination of disease should be better corroborated. William R. Buckley (talk) 07:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, you've totally missed the point of what I said and what I took the time to be very careful about. Will you read it over again? My whole point was that such examples were equally meaningless, that they are not sound, that the mere presence of someone at a nuclear test and their later long life or early death was not causal. Ergo my saying it is "just as unscientific", etc. It is not "just as speculative" to say that there is no evidence given. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a briefer summary for those that can't be bothered with multiple paragraphs: It's true that a biography or two has baselessly speculated about his attendance at a nuclear test as being his cause of death. And a good number of other biographies have parroted that speculation. But it's still just speculation, supported by no evidence. It really shouldn't be part of the article, even if others have made that speculation. There are good reasons to be suspicious of such speculations. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My prime concern was your use of a philosophical fallacy in your argument. Do a better job of describing your objection (such as by not relying upon fallacious reasoning) and I will not complain. William R. Buckley (talk) 00:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While clearly it should not be stated in the article that his cancer was caused by experimental nuclear radiation exposure, the speculation deserves its due weight. Herman Goldstine also believed that von Neumann's (and all his other colleagues') cancer deaths were from such exposure. No single case of cancer has ever had its cause directly traced to a certain exposure event; there are always probabilities involved. That should not stop us from noting the coincidence, as many sources do, even if we do not imply the causation. Robert K S (talk) 21:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am told by Richard Gordon of the radiology department at U Manitoba that a correlation has been made, that radiography leads to cancer; the number of breast cancers later detected correlates linearly with the number of breasts previously tested for cancer in mammography. I will get the reference in specific, and promptly post that here. William R. Buckley (talk) 18:03, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

small editing suggestion

What does this mean: The public interest in this work was such that The New York Times ran a front page story, something which only Einstein had previously elicited. Nonsense, as written, of course, The NYTs has run lots of front page stories from its inception. Something is meant like ...only second scientific story on front page ( which seems dubious in any case). Suggest delete, edit or clarify.99.175.87.19 (talk) 14:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This was an edit by User:Lunicornis. I will ask him about it. (Though he has not been active recently.) --Aleph4 (talk) 14:56, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not really true

With very few exceptions, all present-day home computers, microcomputers, minicomputers and mainframe computers use this single-memory computer architecture.

Yes, originally microcomputers and minicomputers used this architecture. But not now. Most are really a modified form of 'Harvard' architecture (Microcontrollers excepted). Yes, program & data are stored together in 'RAM', but the relation between the RAM and CPU nowadays is more like the relation between Magnetic drum/disk and CPU was back in the 80's. The instructions get moved to program cache, while data gets moved to data cache, two separate memories, and from there the system looks like a Harvard architecture. 71.214.223.133 (talk) 03:25, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck with this one. There are a number of problems with this article, but some highly technical editors have tried in the past to get some accuracy in detail about computer architecture on wikipedia, but other editors won't allow it, no matter what your sources. Still, keep trying. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 04:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Invention of the Computer

It is not correct to say that John von Neumann invented the computer. It is correct to say that he invented the concept of a stored program. Prior to this invention, computers were strictly data-flow machines, and programming was effected by rewiring of the machine. Please, know your topic before you edit corresponding Wikipedia articles. For complete information about the historical context of John von Neumann's work, see the book by Herman Heine Goldstine, titled "The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann." William R. Buckley (talk) 03:41, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As Buckley well knows, it is even controversial to state that von Neumann invented the stored-program concept, and much ink has been devoted to this controversy. Robert K S (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed! I should have included the equivocating words *... reasonably correct to say ...* I imagine that you are referring most specifically to Zuse. William R. Buckley (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, one could reasonably look at the Jacquard Loom and see an example of stored programming, however primitive. William R. Buckley (talk) 06:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I've seen that argued before, and I think I might need to be persuaded of that. The primary idea in the stored-program concept is that data and instruction are stored in the same memory store. In the Jacquard Loom is there even a dichotomy of data and instruction? Aren't they identical (i.e., the data is the weaving pattern instruction to the loom)? Robert K S (talk) 07:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that with data flow machines, the program is external to the device. With the Jacquard Loom, it is the data (thread) which is external to the device, and the program is contained in the sequence of cards used to control the loom. So, in a sense the Loom is the reverse case of the ENIAC. The nature of the memory is not the issue; just that programming was stored on the cards, instead of having to be physically implemented by the loom operator just before each pass of the shuttle. Is the suggestion more clear? William R. Buckley (talk) 00:26, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
More to the Moore School controversy, actually, but any complete discussion will mention Zuse as well. Zuse's ideas, of course, did not come to be known until after the stored program concept was already firmly established, and historians began looking into earlier claims. It is clear that it was the distribution of the First Draft, in combination with the Moore School Lectures, that cemented this architecture as the standard for general purpose computing machines in the '40s/'50s. Robert K S (talk) 04:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is a lot of controversy over the First Draft and the Moore School Lectures. William R. Buckley (talk) 04:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The revert war now occurring between established editors and the person at IP address 222.168.56.194 originates with a book, "The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies" by Damien Broderick. This claim by Broderick is ill-founded, being that it is unequivocal. As is generally recognised, von Neumann did not *invent* the computer. This recognition is not helped by the quote from Broderick, "Although von Neumann invented the computer we know today, ..." William R. Buckley (talk) 06:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While I am better persuaded that von Neumann invented the notion of stored programming, I recognise that he is not the only person to understand the value of such programming. Hence, I do not insist on this position being represented in this article, as others view the evidence differently. I suggest that the person at IP address 222.168.56.194 is relying upon a single reference, in spite of the many more publications which provide demonstration of claims (instead of assertion of claims), and that this behavior is inconsistent with the notion and goal of producing a quality encyclopedia. Please, expand your knowledge of the relevant literature, rather than persisting with an edit war. William R. Buckley (talk) 06:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An important issue is apparent here. The anon has found a source which is verifiable (in the Wikipedia sense) to support his position. However, several editors above, as well as myself, think that the source contains information that is inaccurate and misleading. When two verifiable sources contain contradictory claims how is the matter to be decided? I suppose, as is happening here, by the weight of argument on the talk page. Possibly, the alternate versions need to be referenced, but in this case I think that is not needed as the anon's source is so marginal compared to the mainstream sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC).[reply]
It is not just that the anon sources (now two) are marginal. They also fail to cite a source for the conclusions upon which the anon relies, and so are clearly opinion. I do not argue that opinion is unimportant, even to an encyclopedia, but that such must be explicitly disclosed. William R. Buckley (talk) 06:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a book that has been published by an author who interviewed Eckert (of Eniac fame) and who provided supporting evidence that von Neumann did not in fact invent the stored program computer, but stole the idea from Mauchley and Eckert. The story went that after (during?) building Eniac, they realized that they should have used the stored program architecture. They told of their ideas to vonNeumann, who was managing their work on the Eniac project, and vonNeuman quickly published a paper on it to ensure he would get credited for the idea. In other words, vonNeumann stole M&E's idea.71.214.223.133 (talk) 03:14, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One should be cautious in accepting the assertion of an interviewee regarding claims. If indeed Eckert is correctly quoted in the book you mention, then he is in a conflict of interest position. Why should we accept that his (Eckert's) view of history is correct? After all, such a novel concept (as was then the stored program) would have been ripe for publication, and researchers are notoriously competitive in publishing novel concepts; i.e., no researcher likes to be scooped. William R. Buckley (talk) 18:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To the editor at IP address 65.29.104.210, please, stop this edit war. The citations you give are not substantiated by other references, and constitute opinion, and nothing more; not one of these gives a citation for the claim. Mind you, I would (personally) be happy if the entire world accepted that von Neumann invented the computer. It is however not true, and this by review of documents which von Neumann himself wrote. William R. Buckley (talk) 05:01, 19 October 2009 (UTC) Again to the editor at IP address 65.29.104.210, you have cited a work that gives opinion. Indeed, in this case, the text is a blatant example of opinion, for why else would it begin with a plea, that "... we can all agree ..." Well, I for one don't agree. So, let me be a bit provocative with a counter example. I believe, without having asked, that the other editors of this page would be more inclined to suggest that, in the abstract, it was Turing who invented the computer. And, just to test my claim, will the other editors of this article please opine on this point? William R. Buckley (talk) 16:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It should be obvious by now that the IP ignores this talk page, and just continues to push his text over and over again. It's pointless to make a discussion when one side refuses to participate. I think the time is ripe for other measures, such as semi-protection. — Emil J. 16:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, agreed, and at least we tried. I will continue to hold out the olive branch, in hopes that the IP will change his/her approach. William R. Buckley (talk) 20:01, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seemingly Misplaced Sentence

The sentence "he won the award from the U.S. Army for his creative thinking", which appears at the end of the chapter Politics and social affairs, seems out of place. Whaa? (talk) 10:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality in first sentence

If as has been asserted by one editor, von Neumann's notability started as a child prodigy, then the lead should state "Austro-Hungarian-American" rather than "Hungarian-American". The latter sounds like ethnicity is being emphasized rather than national citizenship. Yworo (talk) 09:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that his country was Austro-Hungarian Empire, and its declination after the World War I is not a reason to skip his nationallity. He was Hungarian Jew indeed. In Austro-Hungarian Empire like in Ottoman Empire, and other countries, which consisted of other countries, the nationallity was recognized according to the place of living. I do not like to emphasize his Hungarian nationallity, but many examples assert that the sole nationallity is more appropriate (see Gustav Mahler, or Bertha von Suttner; both were born in Austro-Hungarian Empire, but aren't considered as Austro-Hungarians). --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 14:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Birthplace and ethnicity/religion belong in the infobox and early life section. The information in the infobox is easily seen when starting to browse the article. It does not need to be repeated in the lead sentence. Yworo (talk) 14:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not my point. The problem is Austro-Hungarian-American or just Hungarian-American. The examples above, clearly ote that, beside of the name of the country, the ethnicity is other. Another good example is Gustav Mahler. The text in the first paragraph is enough to conclude that John von Neumann became notable, and notable as Hungarian. Also, his main contributions in game theory were at the end of the 1920s. The notability gained before immigrating to the US was even greater than his notability in the United States. He moved as a keen mathematcian. He did not keep up his education in the United States. This occassion is same as with Enrico Fermi.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. If you think that only the last citizenship, or the citizenship at the time of dead is needed in the lead section, you got in incorrect. This makes sence, only if he has renounced his prevous citizenship, and his life spent in the prevous countries (the second is impossible).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the time period when he was naturalized, renunciation of previous citizenship was indeed required. I don't see what you have against Austro-Hungarian-American. On my talk page you yourself stated that his first notability was as a child prodigy during the years 1911-1913. Hungary did not then exist as a separate country, nor did it at his birth. Unless you are saying we need to use Austro-Hungarian-Hungarian-American. Is that what you want? Yworo (talk) 02:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No! Hungarian-American is my propose. Austro-Hungarian is a little bit controverse, because Austria, and Hungary were separate, with own parliaments. It was like the European union today. Controversal is the Austro-Hungarian citizenship, which did not exist. Albert Einstein got an Austrian citizenship in 1911, which asserts that Austrian, and Hungarian citizenships were also separate. I gave examples above, and it's good for you to see. Then, why other notable people from Austro-Hungarian Empire are considered, only as Austrians, Hungarians, etc.?--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 12:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Hungarian-American. The other reasonable options are too complicated and only make sense if interpreted in one specific way. Ambiguity is a good thing so long as all reasonable interpretations are somewhat correct and the general idea is correct. Hans Adler 12:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And if the reader is sufficiently sharp to recognise the attendant ambiguity. William R. Buckley (talk) 04:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Austro-Hungarian-American" is not a widely used term to represent ethnicity (I've never seen it before and I'm not even sure what it would mean), whereas Hungarian American is. In terms of ethnicity von Neumann was unambiguously Hungarian and unambiguously not Austrian. Robert K S (talk) 21:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

von Neumann invented both the computer and the internet

at M.I.T. after he was brought over from germany. WTF it is a continuous source of abject humor to myself that no "academically official" organ on this planet TO THIS VERY DAY can willingly acknowledge either of these two facts!

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:John_von_Neumann&oldid=360859084"