John Von Neumann was the smartest man of the 20th century

[MoreKane]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

this guy was a complete genius, considered to be the last true polymath before the era of specialization in the sciences/math...

- made pioneering contributions to set, geometry, ergodic,measure, operator theory etc.
- made contributions in fluid, hydrodynamics
- worked in the Manhattan Project and made contributions to the bomb
- created the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics (independent of Dirac)
- creator of modern game theory (along with Oskar Mortgenstern)
- one of the early fathers of computer science.
- father of cellular autonama (with Stainslav Ulam)
- and etc. etc.

theres a whole section on his wiki dedicated to his cognitive abilities and how everyone around him percieved him as superhuman, talking noble prize winners saw this man as a superhuman when it came to math


he was also kind of a Hawk in that he is the originator of the term and concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction" and our modern nuclear war policy


his results might not be as deep as Einstein's or as publically well known as Darwin's but his contributions were both still broad and deep, and is arguably the greatest mathematician of the 20th century

 

[DragRacer]

How much could he bench though?

 

[IIIIIIII]

okay. great.

 

[thegreenblender]

Yah, he was a bad dude. Modern computers still run on Von Neumann architecture for the most part, and as you say, that was just one his many contributions.

I think this quote sums it up well: "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man" -- Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe of Cornell University

There are tons of other anecdotes on Wikipedia, from indisputably brilliant people who considered themselves totally out of his league.