I wonder if a person like this came along today, whether they would be allowed to have the same type of impact in the variety of different ways that John von Neumann did. Whether he was advancing economic theory or telling the military the most efficient altitude to detonate a bomb, it was all the same basic skill set. He was just a crazy smart and logical guy and he applied that to every field that he could. I can't think of any modern equivalent person who has had a similar impact in the number of disciplines that von Neumann did. Does this type of opportunity still exist or do we now put too much focus on having people concentrate on a single area of expertise?

I'm surprised this article doesn't mention his language abilities.

Since the age of six, von Neumann was fluent in Latin and ancient Greek. He also read (and remembered completely) all the major works of antiquity.

As someone who's been struggling with Latin and Greek for over 10 years it completely breaks my spirit to know that for someone else it was so effortless.

What I find truly remarkable about polymaths is that they don't seem to be crippled in other regards. There is no trade-off. Actually, abilities seem to positivly correlate rather than displace each other.

It seems like there's a free lunch somewhere. Which is unusual for living beings, for evolution to miss it.

The section on "work habits" is especially amazing. I know people who are very smart but also very lazy. They end up falling behind in the long run; may be a corollary to the Curse of the Gifted.

John von Neumann was an absolutely amazing human and scientist. truly a genius, a polymath, and evidently quite an interesting party guest. the book Prisoner's Dilemma is ostensibly about game theory but it's set within the context of von Neumann's life. really quite fascinating, one of my favorite people to study.

http://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/d...

I think it's sad that at the end of his life, he was really fearful of death. So fearful, in fact, that he sought refuge in religion, but supposedly, it didn't bring much comfort.

I always think of that when I ponder about my own struggles with life, the human condition, and mortality. I really don't want to be that fearful of my own impending death if I get something like cancer.

"Hungarian is not exactly a lingua franca" Hard to argue with that part. :)

Anyhow, a colleague of mine at PaineWebber sadly came down with schizophrenic delusions, and concluded that he and I were illegitimate children of Norbert Weiner, while Jack Grubman and Andy Kessler had been sired by John von Neumann. I objected strenuously; as somebody whose PhD these was a special case of the min-max theorem for zero-sum games, I thought it only fitting that I be on the von Neumann side of the ledger.

Gödel did not prove that mathematics could not 'be proved consistent'. He proved that particular axiomatic systems cannot be both complete and consistent.

More than once I was studying something in completely unrelated fields (eg: quantum mechanics, biology, game theory), when suddenly von Neumann (who I first knew for his contributions to computer science) is mentioned and I'm like "What? This guy again?". After the third time I went to read his biography because it couldn't be the same person. But yeah, it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann