The Visionary Life of John von Neumann.
This book is sort-of a biography of Neumann… But the majority of the book is a description of the “fields” that Neumann contributed to and the other participants in those fields.
To understand why Neumann’s work was important, the context of the time is described. Then, the subsequent development in the field that (perhaps) Neumann’s work triggers/influenced is described. I found this approach non-satisfying — I was looking for more about von Neumann and less about other scientists or mathematicians or whatever.
Areas that von Neumann contributed to:
- Axiomatization of Pure Mathematics: An area worked on by Cantor, Hilbert, Russell, Godel.
- Quantum Mechanics: He wrote an early QM book “Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics” (in German).
- Manhattan Project: Von Neumann worked on ballistics and explosive calculations for the war effort and ended up working on the atom bomb. He worked on the “implosion method” for the A-bomb. (The first bomb exploded at Los Alamos). Subsequently he worked on the H-bomb first exploded on the Bikini Atoll.
- Computer Architecture: The Eniac computer was originally built to do ballistics calculations, but the first calculations actually performed were for the atomic bomb. As originally built, the Eniac was “programmed” by patch panels. Re-configuring to perform different calculations was a lengthy effort. Von Neumann wrote a paper (EDVAC) describing a stored program computer and an instruction set for the “CPU”. The Eniac was reconfigured to be such a computer.
- Aside: One of the first programmers for this Eniac was von Neumann’s wife (nee Klara Dan). She authored the user manual for the Eniac!
- Game Theory: Von Neumann wrote early papers on the minimax algorithms for “solving” games. With co-author Morgenstein, he wrote “The Theory of Games”. This is early work on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma.
- The Rand Corporation: Game theory and related analysis led to the creation of the Rand Corporation, and von Neumann was a key researcher for Rand.
- Cellular Automata: Von Neumann wrote “The Theory of Self-reproducing Automata”. John Horton Conway’s “Game of Life” was triggered by this work.