John von Neumann - The Society of Catholic Scientists

Catholic Scientist of the Past December 28, 1903 to February 8, 1957 John von Neumann (December 28, 1903 to February 8, 1957) Von Neumann, who was born in Hungary and emigrated to the United States in 1933, is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. He did pioneering work in many areas of both pure and applied mathematics. His 1932 book “The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics” gave the first rigorous mathematical formulation of the principles of quantum mechanics. His 1944 book with Oskar Morgenstern, “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior,” founded the mathematical field of “game theory” and has had enormous impact on theoretical economics. His ideas also contributed greatly to the development of digital computers. (Most modern programmable computers are based on what is called the “von Neumann architecture.”) Von Neumann also made fundamentally important contributions to set theory and to several branches of pure mathematics. Many of the great …