I recall a story from a mathematician or physicist who claimed to discern how intelligent someone was by observing how long it took them to figure out that they weren't as smart as John von Neumann. It wasn't Feynman, but it was someone like that, also superbly intelligent with a humorous streak. Does anyone remember whose story that was?
What a great thing to have said about you, eh?
Very unlike most physicists & mathematicians at the time, von Neumann favored a preemptive nuclear was against the Soviet Union while the US still had an overwhelming preponderance of these weapons and delivery capabilities.
ReplyDeleteEvidence for smartness, or the contrary?....
I believe he had changed that belief ten years later?
ReplyDeleteOf course, the world had changed ten years later.
Either way, every D&D player knows that Intelligence and Wisdom aren't the same thing.
von Neumann's wife, Klara, was involved in early programming work for the ENIAC computer and apparently made some significant contributions. Which is interesting because her Klara’s mathematics teacher back in Hungary had given her a passing grade only because he was impressed that she openly admitted she didn’t understand anything of what was being taught!
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot written about 'the women of ENIAC' and also some video documentaries, but very little about Klara...probably partly due to the the fact that she joined the project as a result of her marriage rather than being part of the initial crew, and partly because she died by suicide.
I wrote about the ENIAC and the various people involved in 2021:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/64972.html
He also apparently totalled about a car a year.
ReplyDeleteWisdom is something different, and I have always liked the Medieval formulation of four cardinal and three theological virtues. (Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Fortitude; Faith, Hope, Charity)
Their history is fascinating, as they can be found in Greek and Roman philosophers, and also in the Scriptural Apocrypha. You will notice in page after page of those discussions that raw intelligence does not figure at all. The brilliant philosophers likely had the same prejudice toward that because they wanted stimulating thought and conversation, like everyone else. But when you sat them down and said What is Wisdom really they all left it out.
In The Ascent of Man Jacob Bronowski referred to Von Neumann as "probably the cleverest man I have ever met" or something like that. Sounds about right, no?
ReplyDelete