SCIENCE science.org 4 MARCH 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6584 983PHOTO: BETTMANN/CONTRIBUTOR/GETTY IMAGES
By Dov Greenbaum1,2andMark Gerstein^2J
ohn von Neumann, often referred to
by his peers as Johnny, was a Hun-
garian American polymath and pro-
digious academic who made vital
contributions to numerous fields of
study during the first half of the 20 th
century. In 2022, however, von Neumann
could be the smartest person most people
have never heard of. To wit, Google Trends
shows that his online popularity last year
was almost an order of magnitude less
than that of Alan Turing, a contemporary
in computing; Erwin Schrödinger, a prede-
cessor in quantum mechanics;
and Stephen Wolfram, a succes-
sor in the world of automata.
This remarkable scholar
was not always uncelebrated.
“When he died, aged just fifty-
three, von Neumann was as
famous as it is possible for a
mathematician to be,” writes
Ananyo Bhattacharya in The
Man from the Future, which ex-
amines the tremendous impact
von Neumann had on various
scientific disciplines in eight
exceptional chapters.
Bhattacharya observes that
von Newman “constantly sought
new practical fields to which
he could apply his mathemati-
cal genius, and he seemed to
choose each one with an unerr-
ing sense of its potential to rev-
olutionize human affairs.” His research and
insights were as invaluable to the emerging
military-industrial complex as they were
to IBM, and his adherents ranged from
hardcore “cold warriors” to groundbreak-
ing computer engineers to radical innova-
tors working on artificial life. At the end of
his life, as he lay dying in a hospital, he was
surrounded by the secretary of defense; the
deputy secretary of defense; the secretar-
ies of the air force, army, and navy; and the
chiefs of staff. He left the hospital briefly in
a wheelchair to accept the Medal of Free-
dom from President Eisenhower, notesBhattacharya. “We need you,” the president
informed him.
The book sketches the natural progres-
sion of von Neumann’s academic develop-
ment, demonstrating how his early work
with David Hilbert in Göttingen provided
the mathematical foundation for his later
work on matrix mechanics and formalizing
computers and algorithms and how the de-
gree he earned in chemical engineering from
ETH Zurich—a compromise with his banker
father, who considered engineering a more
financially prudent educational pursuit than
mathematics—may have steered him toward
more applied pursuits, such as bomb-makingand computer engineering. Meanwhile, his
work in digital computing led von Neumann
to a late-in-life interest in artificial life, au-
tomata, and the brain.
Compared with his other pursuits, von
Neumann’s path to game theory was not
as obvious. It is, nonetheless, where he
made some of his greatest contributions.
“A half-dozen Nobel laureates are reck-
oned to have been influenced by the work,”
notes Bhattacharya.
Apart from game theory, von Neumann
is perhaps best known today for his work in
computing. His incomplete First Draft of a
Report on the EDVAC (the electronic discrete
variable automatic computer) has become
the “most influential document in the history
of computing,” describing what we now intuit
as the necessary components of a computer:a processing unit, a control unit, random ac-
cess memory, mass storage, and input and
output methods.
This report was not without controversy.
Von Neumann appears to have scooped the
efforts of John W. Mauchly and J. Presper
Eckert, other early pioneers in the field. More
than a mere academic slight, the battle over
the invention of the modern com-
puter became “the longest trial
in the history of the federal court
system.” Ultimately, however, the
courts ruled, as von Neumann
had intended, that the basic ideas
of the digital computer were left
to the public domain.
The reader learns much about
math and physics in this biog-
raphy, including the differences
between the matrix and wave
interpretations of quantum me-
chanics, Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems, and the mathematics
that underlies the Turing ma-
chine. In contrast, we learn spar-
ingly little about von Neumann’s
personal life: for example, that
he had an interesting custody
agreement with his first wife (his
daughter, Marina, was to live
with her mother until she reached “the age
of reason,” at which point she would live with
her father in order to “receive the benefit of
his genius”), that he enjoyed partying, and
that he “showed signs of obsessive-compul-
sive disorder.” “A drawer could not be opened
unless it was pushed in and out seven times,”
according to his second wife. “The same with
a light switch, which also had to be flipped
seven times before you could let it stay.”
Many of von Neumann’s prescient ideas
still play an immeasurable role in modern life
more than half a century after his death. Re-
acquainting modern readers with “the most
famous scientist in America after Einstein,”
The Man from the Future calls attention to
a conundrum: Why has von Neumann so
largely faded from contemporary view? j
10.1126/science.abn7018SCIENCE LIVESThe lasting legacy of John von Neumann
A new biography seeks to reacquaint readers with the once widely celebrated scientist
The Man from the Future:
The Visionary Life
of John von Neumann
Ananyo Bhattacharya
Norton, 2022. 368 pp.INSIGHTSVon Neumann receives the Medal of Freedom from President Eisenhower in 1956.The reviewers are at^1 Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal
Implications of Emerging Technologies, Radzyner
Law School, Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel; and(^2) Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Yale University,
New Haven, CT, USA. Email: [email protected]