"In a Silliman lecture ... John von Neumann, who was dying at the time, wrote some of the most splendid sentences he wrote in all his life ... He pointed out that there were good grounds merely in terms of electrical analysis to show that the mind, the brain itself, could not be working on a digital system. It did not have enough accuracy; or ... it did not have enough memory. ... And he wrote some classical sentences saying there is a statistical language in the brain ... different from any other statistical language that we use... this is what we have to discover. ...I think we shall make some progress along the lines of looking for what kind of statistical language would work."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
PolymathsAcademics from the United StatesMathematicians from the United StatesAcademics from HungaryMathematicians from Hungary
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Jacob Bronowski, The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978); referring to von Neumann's, The Computer and the Brain (1958)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (28 December 1903 – 8 February 1957) was a Hungarian-American-Jewish mathematician, physicist, inventor, computer scientist, and polymath. He made major contributions to a number of fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, geometry, set theory, topology, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics and quantum statistical mechanics), economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear p
313 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by John von Neumann →
Related Quotes
"I think that in terms of mathematical intelligence, he was virtually unparalleled."
"He was one of the most attractive people I’ve ever known, attractive in the sense that he knew so much and could reas…"
"John von Neumann was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century."
"The first thing that people recall about John von Neumann is his phenomenal speed of thought. He didn’t have to remem…"
"Brilliant mathematician."
"Von Neumann was exceptionally widely known among mathematicians, and there are plenty of anecdotes related to him. I …"
"A great mathematician in his or any era."
"A memory which seemed to operate with even more speed than his machines enabled him to bring up, from his vast and we…"
"He always demonstrated his fantastic and to some extent prophetic range of interests in mathematics and its applicati…"
"He had a real knack for calculatin."