Academics From Hungary

"It must have been a shattering experience to have grown up with von Neumann however bright one is."

"He was the quickest mathematician i have ever known."

"He was the most remarkable man. I’m always utterly surprised that his name is not common, household. It is a name that should be known to every American—in fact, every person in the world, just as the name of Einstein is. I am always utterly surprised how come he’s almost totally unknown. In fact, did you know – you did know, all right, you are an unusually well informed person. All people who had met him and interacted with him realized that his brain was more powerful than anyone’s they have ever encountered. I remember Hans Bethe even said, only half in jest, that von Neumann’s brain was a new development of the human brain. Only a slight exaggeration."

"People today have a hard time to imagine how brilliant von Neumann was. If you talked to him, after three words, he took over. He understood in an instant what the problem was and had ideas. Everybody wanted to talk to him."

"Mrs. Szegő often recalled that Szegő came home with tears in his eyes from his first encounter with the young prodigy."

"To gain a measure of von Neumann’s achievements, consider that had he lived a normal span of years, he would certainly have been a recipient of a Nobel Prize in economics. And if there were Nobel Prizes in computer science and mathematics, he would have been honored by these, too. So the writer of these letters should be thought of as a triple Nobel laureate or, possibly, a ​3 1⁄2-fold winner, for his work in physics, in particular, quantum mechanics."

"Von Neumann was addicted to thinking, and in particular to thinking about mathematics."

"Von Neumann combined, in a unique fashion, extreme quickness, very broad interests, and a fearsome technical prowess."

"Most mathematicians prove what they can, von Neumann proves what he wants." Once in a discussion about the rapid growth of mathematics in modern times, von Neumann was heard to remark that whereas thirty years ago a mathematician could grasp all of mathematics, that is impossible today. Someone asked him: "What percentage of all mathematics might a person aspire to understand today?" Von Neumann went into one of his five-second thinking trances, and said: "About 28 percent."

"He was admired by the brightest stars at Los Alamos: Oppenheimer, Bethe, Feynman, Peierls, Teller and many others; they acknowledged him as their superior for sheer brain power."

"Most scintillating intellect of this century."

"The most powerful brain."

"Historians have noted how Baron Eötvös’s educational efforts led to an explosion of genius — such luminaries as the physicists Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, Leo Szilard, and the mathematician John von Neumann all came out of Budapest during the Eötvös era. The production of Hungarian scientists and mathematicians in the early twentieth century was so prolific that many otherwise calm observers believe Budapest was settled by Martians in a plan to infiltrate and take over the planet."

"As a matter of fact, he is very good."

"Stone told me that the two mathematicians in all the world who could be most helpful to my development were John von Neumann and Frederick Riesz. (His Hungarian name, Frigyes, became Frederick when anglicized). Von Neumann’s name was well known to me, of course."

"He was brilliant, spoke very fast, his English was quite fluent, he made remarkably few errors. A characteristic one was to talk about “infinite serious” for infinite series. No one ventured to correct his few lapses. I had met him recently at a party. The high point of the evening was a recitation race between him and Norbert Wiener. Somehow, someone recited a line from Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark.” Norbert, with his usual ebullience and sonorous voice, began reciting from line 1. Johnny started off in pursuit. Norbert accelerated, but Johnny came up even. We held our breaths as the lines poured out, on and on until they reached the end in a dead heat."

"The most brilliant mathematician of his generation."

"John von Neumann was the acknowledged genius of modern mathematics."

"The greeting, to a man or to a lady, was raising the hat completely off the head, simultaneously making a pronounced bow, all the while continuing to walk briskly forward. This courteous greeting was a Hungarian custom ingrained firmly in youth, and not easily forgotten in later years. I remember receiving such a greeting in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across a 70 meter avenue, from that most courteous genius, John von Neumann."

"Von Neumann was certainly a true giant of the twentieth century, a figure more unique than rare in his astonishing capacity to join a theoretical intelligence of extraordinary depth to a very concrete view of science."

"In 1990 a thirty-five-year-old professor told me that “von Neumann took the fear out of learning math for all the professors who taught me.”"

"Eleven-year-old Johnny taught him [Wigner] set-theory math during Sunday afternoon walks."

"Wigner and others recall that Ratz’s recognition of Johnny’s mathematical talents was instant."

"Ratz turned his student over to the mathematicians at Budapest University, themselves men of no small renown. Professor Joseph Kurschak soon wrote to a university tutor, Gabriel Szego, saying that the Lutheran School had a young boy of quite extraordinary talent. Would Szego, as was the Hungarian tradition with infant prodigies, give some university teaching to the lad?"

"After Szego had done the initial coaching in 1915-16, tuition of schoolboy Johnny was taken over by other prominent mathematicians at Budapest University. He had contact with Kurschak, some with the brilliant Alfred Haar, and a little with the internationally known Frigyes Riesz. He was taught more directly by Michael Fekete (whose surname in Hungarian means “black”) and Leopold Fejer (feher is Hungarian for “white”)."

"There was allegedly an exception when one German professor praised the habit of asking Ph.D. students “unsolvable question” at their oral exams. If the student instantly said, “That's unsolvable”, he was deemed to have the right sharp set of mind. The professor put his favorite unsolvable equations on the blackboard as an illustration. Johnny muttered at the ceiling for a few minutes, and then solved some of them. A more typical occasion was when one professor propounded a new discovery that was actually quite wrong. This wrongdoer handled all the questions at the seminar devastatingly well, and there was discussion of his discovery at a private dinner that night. Johnny demolished the whole discovery by saying that he should have been asked a, b, and c . “Why didn't you ask that?” said the seminar organizer desperately. Johnny intimated that he did not like to be publicly rude."

"Von Neumann got very excited when J. M. put production functions on the board and jumped up, wagging his finger at the blackboard, saying (approx): “But surely you want inequalities, not equations there?” Jascha said that it became difficult to carry the seminar to conclusion because von Neumann was on his feet, wandering around the table, etc., while making rapid and audible progress on the linear programming theory of production. “The rapidity with which he made the connection and developed it,” said Arrow, “is in line with many anecdotes of von Neumann’s mental speed.”"

"On what was probably August 7, 1944, Goldstine took Johnny to see the ENIAC at Philadelphia. Before this visit Eckert told Goldstine he would be able to “tell whether von Neumann was really a genius by his first question. If this was about the logical structure of the machine, he would believe in von Neumann, otherwise not. Of course this was von Neumann’s first query.”"

"While all the other computer makers were generally heading in the same direction, von Neumann’s genius clarified and described the paths better than anyone else."

"All three of these men—Strauss, Quarles, and Gardner—thought that America’s technology for war could best be advanced by the man whom they regarded as America’s quickest-thinking scientific genius."

"He was building his computer. He was not just a person who told other guys to build a computer. He was always about details, "How are you going to do this? Which kind of gadget are you going to use for memory?" He was extraordinarily precise in these matters. At the same time he had written a book on the foundation of quantum mechanics, which I read with terror but great interest. He had written this book about games theory, which looked then extremely promising but of course was just the beginning. He had done this work about logic. I mean, in a way Von Neumann was the person who had performed the miracle. He was for me the model above all models."

"Much later, I was to find that my view of Von Neumann as a great man was completely confirmed."

"He was becoming more concerned with defense than with science. But it seemed that he was living proof that one could do science without really belonging to a “guild.” In fact, he was under extreme pressure at Princeton. From there, he left for Washington and was not planning to return. Luckily, von Neumann had realized that, by having failed to claim admission to any guild, I was leading a very dangerous life. A foundation executive told me much later that von Neumann had specifically asked him to watch after me, and to help in case of trouble."

"Phenomenon."

"Johnny von Neumann was the genius."

"I think we were right, though, in thinking he was several leaps ahead of the rest of us."

"Johnny von Neumann was very, very good and very quick and very sharp. He just was a universalist. He was not a mathematician."

"Johnny von Neumann who was very, very quick—I mean, you have no idea how quickly he would infer things and extrapolate them. Well, he was fantastic."

"His talents were so obvious and his cooperative spirit so stimulating that he garnered the interest of many of us."

"Later, Tucker told me that he had gone to von Neumann and said, ‘This seems like very interesting work, but I can’t evaluate it. I don’t know whether it should really be called mathematics.’ Von Neumann replied, ‘Well, if it isn’t now, it will be someday—let’s encourage it.’ So I got my Ph.D.”"

"It is worth emphasizing that as great a mathematician as J. von Neumann never tired of repeating the fact that the errors of observation are what really matter. This is entirely in the spirit of Gauss. It is also noteworthy that von Neumann was firmly convinced that the intimate contact between mathematics and reality would produce, from time to time, decisive progress in mathematics."

"He worked with tremendous energy and fantastic speed."

"The fastest mind I ever met."

"I tried at that time to cast the unifying Dirac-Jordan transformation theory into a simpler and more easily understandable form and to convey its essence to Hilbert. When von Neumann saw this he cast it in a few days into an elegant axiomatic form much to the liking of Hilbert. (This is the origin of the paper “Ober die Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik” by Hilbert, von Neumann and myself . . .). The method used was that of integral operators. . . . This work set von Neumann on his way to his definite studies on the foundations of quantum mechanics."

"We are in what can only be described as a desperate need of your help. We have a good many theoretical people working here, but I think that if your usual shrewdness is a guide to you about the probable nature of our problems you will see why even this staff is in some respects critically inadequate...I would like you to come as a permanent, and let me assure you, honored member of our staff. A visit will give you a better idea of this somewhat Buck Rogers project than any amount of correspondence."

"I remember that there was a feeling of excitement and interest both in Hilbert’s lecture and in the lecture of von Neumann on the foundations of set theory — a feeling that one now finally was coming to grips with both the axiomatic foundation of mathematics and with the reasons for the applications of mathematics in the natural sciences."

"Morgenstern was once asked how a scholar outside the mainstream of economic thinking could make a contribution as original, innovative, and decisive as Johnny's. He replied that Johnny had an extraordinary capacity for picking the brains of a person whom he engaged in casual conversations. Once he saw from these that there was a problem of sufficient mathematical interest to warrant his spending time on it, he homed on to that subject like a guided missile."

"In my life I have met men even greater than Johnny, but none as brilliant. He shone not only in mathematics but was also fluently multilingual and particularly well-versed in history. One of his most remarkable abilities I soon came to note was his power of absolute recall."

"Von Neumann's reputation and fame have grown steadily since his death. His fantastic brain, and the breadth of his interests and undertakings, have become almost legendary."

"If doing physics meant proving theorems, you’d be a great physicist."