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NEUMANN.TXT
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The Precursors
by Richard L. Whitney
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (pronounced Noy-man), born in Budapest, Hungary, of
German parents, was one of the most gifted mathematicians of this
century. His contributions have enriched the fields of quantum
physics, meteorology, pure and applied mathematics, game theory and
computer science.
As a young man he showed an early bent for mathematics, earning his
Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Budapest at 22 and
becoming a lecturer at the University of Berlin just two years later.
It was a singular honor for one so young.
In 1930 he emigrated to the United states and became a Professor of
Mathematical Physics at Princeton University. During this period he
formulated the science of quantum mechanics (Mathematical Foundations
of Quantum Mechanics, 1932) and was one of the founders of the
theory of games. His seminal work on the subject, The Theory of
Games and Economic Behavior, was co-authored with economist Oskar
Morgenstern in 1944. In it he elaborated on the "minimax" theorem
first postulated by him in 1928.
He was independently wealthy and enjoyed the company of high society
as well as that of academia. An elegant dresser, and generally a
personable, well liked individual, he had a fantastic reputation for
mental computation which he often used to amaze his friends and
colleagues.
During the Second World War he was in great demand as a consultant
to various research groups engaged in the war effort. In 1944 he was
introduced to Lt. Herman Goldstine who headed a group that was
charged with laboriously creating firing and bombing tables for the
Army. As part of this effort, Goldstine's group was constructing
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), one of
America's first computers. This monster was 80 feet long, eighteen
feet high, had over 17,000 vacuum tubes, worked in decimal, not
binary, was equipped with a 20 word by 10 digit ram memory and a
450 word read-only memory! It worked in parallel and could perform
5,000 additions or 300 multiplications per second.
EDVAC
Even before ENIAC was complete Goldstine's group was planning its
successor, (EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Computer). John von
Neumann joined in these discussions and made important contributions
to the project. He wrote a widely circulated paper entitled First
Draft of a Report on the EDVAC which embodied the 5 principal
components upon which the design of all modern computers rests,
namely: (1) an Arithmetic Logic Unit, (2) a Central Control Unit,
(3) an internal random access Memory Unit, (4) an Input Unit, and
(5) an Output Unit. He also stated the need for binary, serial
operation and included some borrowed concepts, e.g. conditional
branching, i.e. jump instructions (Ada Byron) and stored programs
(Alan Turing). These elements came to be known collectively to
computer scientists as "von Neumann architecture" and devices that
used them were "von Neumann machines."
References
Augarten, Stan, Bit By Bit: An Illustrated History of
Computers, Ticknor & Fields, New York 1984.
Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol 12, p. 429,
15th ed. Chicago, Illinois. 1987.
Understanding Computers: Computer Basics, Time-
Life Books. Alexandria, Virginia. 1985.
"von Neumann, John." Encyclopedia Americana,
1989. vol 28, p. 232
Wigner, Eugene P. Collier's Encyclopedia, vol 23, p.
200, MacMillan Publishing Co, New York. 1987.