JF Ptak S
cience Books Quick Post
John von Neumann contributed a major piece of prescient thinking in the 1949 volume of Proceedings/Computation Seminar, December 1949, assembled by Cutherbert Hurd of the IBM Applied Science Department. [The entire contents of the volume is available here.] Von Neumann (1903-1957)–perhaps the most advanced mind of the 20th century, a man whose work made the other advanced minds say “how did he do that?”–was a staggering polymath who made contributions in many fields, not the least of which was in the creation of the modern computer. His one-page contribution to this volume was a deep insight into the possibilities of the machine. In 1949. Check out this terrific piece by the great Claude Shannon, “John von Neumann’s Contributions to Automata Theory” here.