John von Neumann

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John von Neumann, (December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) a Hungarian-born American mathematician. Beside his contributions in a vast range of fields, he was a pioneer in game-theory and computer science and specially noted for the computer architecture with a single storage for instructions and data.

=Chess= John von Neumann classified chess as two-player zero-sum game with perfect information and proved the minimax theorem in 1928. Since 1943 von Neumann was member of the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In the early fifties von Neumann developed the MANIAC I computer. A group around Stanislaw Ulam, Paul Stein, Mark Wells and John Pasta developed the MANIAC I chess program, which could play Los Alamos chess.

=See also=
 * Games
 * History of Computer Chess
 * Nils Barricelli - The Birth of the Computer

=Selected Publications=

1920 ...

 * John von Neumann (1923). Zur Einführung der transfiniten Zahlen. Acta litt. Acad. Sc. Szeged, English translation by Jean van Heijenoort (1963). On the introduction of transfinite numbers. in From Frege to Godel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931. Harvard University Press
 * John von Neumann (1925). Eine Axiomatisierung der Mengenlehre. Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, Band 154, English translation by Jean van Heijenoort (1963). An Axiomatisation of Set Theory. in From Frege to Godel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931. Harvard University Press
 * John von Neumann (1928). Zur Theorie der Gesellschaftsspiele. Mathematische Annalen, Vol. 100

1930 ...

 * John von Neumann (1932). Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik. Springer, English translation by Robert T. Beyer (1955). Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Princeton University Press

1940 ...

 * John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern (1944). Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton University Press
 * John von Neumann (1945). First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC. pdf, introduction by Michael D. Godfrey (1993, 2011). IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

1950 ...

 * George W. Brown, John von Neumann (1950). Solutions of Games by Differential Equations. in
 * Harold W. Kuhn, Albert W. Tucker (eds) (1950). Contributions to the Theory of Games I. Princeton University Press


 * John von Neumann (1951). Various Techniques used in Connection with Random Digits. in A.S. Householder, G.E. Forsythe, and H.H. Germond, eds., Monte Carlo Method. National Bureau of Standards Applied Mathematics Series, Vol. 12, No. 1, pdf
 * Émile Borel, Maurice R. Fréchet, John von Neumann (1953). Discussion of the Early History of the Theory of Games, with Special Reference to the Minimax Theorem. Econometrica, Vol. 21, 97-127
 * John von Neumann (1953). A Certain Zero-sum Two-person Game Equivalent to the Optimal Assignment Problem. in
 * Harold W. Kuhn, Albert W. Tucker (eds) (1953). Contributions to the Theory of Games II. Princeton University Press


 * Donald B. Gillies, John P. Mayberry, John von Neumann (1953). Two Variants of Poker. in
 * Harold W. Kuhn, Albert W. Tucker (eds) (1953). Contributions to the Theory of Games II. Princeton University Press

1955 ...

 * John von Neumann (1956). Probabilistic Logic and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisms From Unreliable Components. in
 * Claude Shannon, John McCarthy (eds.) (1956). Automata Studies. Annals of Mathematics Studies, No. 34, pp. 43–98, pdf


 * Harold W. Kuhn, Albert W. Tucker (1958). John von Neumann's work in the theory of games and mathematical economics. Bulletin American Mathematical Sociaty Vol. 64, No. 3, pdf
 * John von Neumann (1958, 2000). The Computer and the Brain. Second Edition from amazon.com

1960 ...

 * John von Neumann (1963). Various techniques used in connection with random digits. von Neumann's Collected Works, Vol. 5, Pergamon Press, pdf » Pseudorandom Number Generator
 * John von Neumann (1966). Theory of self-reproducing automata. edited by Arthur W. Burks, pdf

2000 ...

 * Alexander Reinefeld (2005). Die Entwicklung der Spielprogrammierung: Von John von Neumann bis zu den hochparallelen Schachmaschinen. slides as pdf, Themen der Informatik im historischen Kontext Ringvorlesung an der HU Berlin, 02.06.2005 (English paper, German title)
 * Robert Leonard (2006). From Chess to Catastrophe: Psychology, Politics and the Genesis of von Neumann’s Game Theory. CIRST, Université du Québec à Montréal, pdf
 * Robert Leonard (2007). New Light on von Neumann: politics, psychology and the creation of game theory. pdf

2010 ...

 * Robert Leonard (2010). Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory - From Chess to Social Science, 1900–1960. Cambridge University Press
 * B. Jack Copeland, Diane Proudfoot (2011-2012). Turing, Father of the Modern Computer. The Rutherford Journal - The New Zealand Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Vol. 4 » with photos of Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Dietrich Prinz, Christopher Strachey, Jack Good, Arthur Samuel, Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, ...

=External Links=
 * John von Neumann from Wikipedia
 * John von Neumann - Wikiquote
 * The Mathematics Genealogy Project - John (Janos) von Neumann
 * John von Neumann from the Atomic Archive
 * John Louis von Neumann © J. A. N. Lee, 1994-2002.
 * Proof by Erasure - The Life of John von Neumann, Feature Script by Constanze Kurz, Hörspiel-Werkstatt
 * John von Neumann, Der Denker des Computer Zeitalters (German), (John Von Neumann, Prophète du XXIème siécle), Arte broadcast 2015, YouTube Video

List of Things ...

 * List of things named after John von Neumann from Wikipedia
 * Von Neumann algebra from Wikipedia
 * Von Neumann architecture from Wikipedia
 * Von Neumann neighborhood from Wikipedia » Manhattan-Distance
 * Von Neumann programming languages from Wikipedia
 * Von Neumann universe from Wikipedia

=References=

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