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joenot443 • today at 3:38 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

I enjoyed this one a lot.

For those who've read other books on von Neumann, do you think The MANIAC is a reasonable summary?


Replies

helterskelter2 • today at 4:56 PM

I haven't read MANIAC (yet) but a few years back I was trying to find a good biography of Von Neumann and there are not many; the problem is that he's really difficult to cover comprehensively, even for science historians, because he impacted so many areas of science that you'd practically have to be a von Neumann to create a biography of von Neumann. One could probably get a rough idea of his intelligence by how many science historians it would take to create a comprehensive biography which explains his life and work to a reasonably intelligent layman.