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John von Neumann
22 quotes
“For progress there is no cure.... The only safety possible is relative, and it lies in an intelligent exercise of day-to-day judgement.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Can we survive Technology?" 1950.
“Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number — there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On mistaking pseudorandom number generators for being truly "random" — this quote is often erroneously interpreted to mean that von Neumann was against the use of pseudorandom numbers, when in reality he was cautioning …
“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Method in the Physical Sciences", in The Unity of Knowledge (1955), ed. L. G. Leary (Doubleday & Co., New York), p. 157
“It is exceptional that one should be able to acquire the understanding of a process without having previously acquired a deep familiarity with running it, with using it, before one has assimilated it in an instinctive and empirical way… Thus any discussion of the nature of intellectual effort in any field is difficult, unless it presupposes an easy, routine familiarity with that field. In mathematics this limitation becomes very severe.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Mathematician" in The World of Mathematics (1956), by
“When we talk mathematics, we may be discussing a secondary language built on the primary language of the nervous system.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in John von Neumann, 1903-1957 (1958) by and B. J. Pettis, p. 128
“It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted "John von Neumann (1903 - 1957)" by Eugene Wigner, in Year book of the American Philosophical Society (1958); later in Symmetries and Reflections : Scientific Essays of Eugene P. Wigner (1967), p. 261
“You should call it entropy, for two reasons. In the first place your uncertainty function has been used in statistical mechanics under that name, so it already has a name. In the second place, and more important, no one really knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Suggesting to Claude Shannon a name for his new uncertainty function, as quoted in Scientific American Vol. 225 No. 3, (1971), p. 180.
“Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply, according to Dr. Felix T. Smith of Stanford Research Institute, to a physicist friend who had said "I'm afraid I don't understand the method of characteristics," as quoted in The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overvie…
“You don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Advice given by von Neumann to Richard Feynman as quoted in "Los Alamos from Below" in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985).
“The goys have proven the following theorem…”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement at the start of a classroom lecture, as quoted in 1,911 Best Things Anyone Ever Said (1988) by Robert Byrne.
“The calculus was the first achievement of modern mathematics and it is difficult to overestimate its importance. I think it defines more unequivocally than anything else the inception of modern mathematics; and the system of mathematical analysis, which is its logical development, still constitutes the greatest technical advance in exact thinking.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Bigeometric Calculus: A System with a Scale-Free Derivative (1983) by Michael Grossman, and in Single Variable Calculus (1994) by James Stewart.
“With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed to von Neumann by Enrico Fermi, as quoted by Freeman Dyson in "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" in Nature 427 (22 January 2004) p. 297
“You wake me up early in the morning to tell me that I'm right? Please wait until I'm wrong.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If one has really technically penetrated a subject, things that previously seemed in complete contrast, might be purely mathematical transformations of each other.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Proportions, Prices, and Planning (1970) by András Bródy
“If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark made by von Neumann as keynote speaker at the first national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1947, as mentioned by Franz L. Alt at the end of "Archaeology of computers: Reminiscences, 1945--…
“There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in John Von Neumann : The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence and Much More (1992) by Norman Macrae, p. 379
“If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at five o' clock, I say why not one o' clock?”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "The Passing of a Great Mind" by Clay Blair, Jr., in LIFE Magazine (25 February 1957), p. 96
“Some people confess guilt to claim credit for the sin.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) said by 1957 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More (2016) by Norman Macrae, p. 352 in response to Oppenheimer's 'destroyer of worlds' q…
“It will not be sufficient to know that the enemy has only fifty possible tricks and that we can counter every one of them, but we must be able to counter them almost at the very instant they occur.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Defense in Atomic War by John von Neumann. Paper delivered at a symposium in honor of Dr. R. H. Kent, December 7, 1955, The Scientific Bases of Weapons, Journ. Am. Ordnance Assoc., 21–23, 1955.
“I think that it is a relatively good approximation to truth — which is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations — that mathematical ideas originate in empirics. But, once they are conceived, the subject begins to live a peculiar life of its own and is … governed by almost entirely aesthetical motivations. In other words, at a great distance from its empirical source, or after much "abstract" inbreeding, a mathematical subject is in danger of degeneration. At the inception the style is usually classical; when it shows signs of becoming baroque, then the danger signal is up. It would be easy to give examples, to trace specific evolutions into the baroque and the very high baroque... Whenever this stage is reached the only remedy seems to me to be the rejuvenating return to the source: the reinjection of more or less directly empirical ideas.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Mathematician", in The Works of the Mind (1947) edited by R. B. Heywood, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
“The total subject of mathematics is clearly too broad for any one of us. I do not think that any mathematician since Gauss has covered it fully and uniformly, even Hilbert did not, and all of us are of considerably lesser width (quite apart from the question of depth) than Hilbert. It would therefore, be quite unrealistic not to admit, that any address I could possibly give would not be biased towards some areas in mathematics in which I have had some experience, to the detriment of others which may be equally or more important. To be specific, I could not avoid a bias towards those parts of analysis, logics, and certain border areas of the applications of mathematics to other sciences in which I have worked. If your Committee feels that an address which is affected by such imperfections still fits into the program of the Congress, and if the very generous confidence in my ability to deliver continues, I shall be glad to undertake it.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to H. D. Kloosterman (April 10, 1953), unpublished, John von Neumann Archive, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., as quoted by , 1999. "Unsolved Problems in Mathematics": J. von Neumann's Address to the Intern…
“A large part of mathematics which becomes useful developed with absolutely no desire to be useful, and in a situation where nobody could possibly know in what area it would become useful; and there were no general indications that it ever would be so. By and large it is uniformly true in mathematics that there is a time lapse between a mathematical discovery and the moment when it is useful; and that this lapse of time can be anything from 30 to 100 years, in some cases even more; and that the whole system seems to function without any direction, without any reference to usefulness, and without any desire to do things which are useful.”
John von Neumann (1903–1957) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Role of Mathematics in the Sciences and in Society" (1954) an address to Princeton alumni, published in John von Neumann : Collected Works (1963) edited by ; also quoted in Out of the Mouths of Mathematicians : A Qu…