John von Neumann earned two degrees at once to keep his father happy
When 15-year-old János Neumann first met his calculus tutor Gábor Szegő, the mathematician went home with tears in his eyes at the boy's speed. His banker father still wanted a practical career. So von Neumann studied chemical engineering in Zurich while quietly finishing a mathematics doctorate in Budapest, collecting both in 1926.
He grew up in Budapest in 1903 in a wealthy family occupying an 18-room apartment, one room turned into a library. Governesses and tutors drilled the children in English, French, German and Italian. Legend says he knew calculus by eight, and he worked through a 46-volume world history for fun. In 1913 the emperor ennobled his father, adding a title referring to a town the family had no link with, chosen to honour his mother Margit; the boy later turned it into the German "von." By 19 he had published two major papers, the second giving the modern definition of ordinal numbers.
His rise was fast. In Göttingen he studied under David Hilbert, and in 1928 he became the youngest Privatdozent in the University of Berlin's history, producing close to a major paper every month. In 1933 the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey gave him a permanent professorship. He helped lay the mathematical foundations of quantum physics, game theory and the digital computer, and his analysis of how a machine might copy itself came before anyone knew the structure of DNA.
In person he defied the stereotype of the reclusive genius. He always wore a formal suit, loved crude jokes, and did some of his best thinking amid noise; neighbours in Princeton complained about his booming German marches. A colleague recalled him partying into the small hours and lecturing at 8:30 the next morning. He often went to bed with a problem unsolved and woke up knowing the answer. His closest American friend was Stanisław Ulam.
During the Second World War he worked on the Manhattan Project, and in the 1950s he chaired defence committees and helped shape the first American intercontinental missile programmes. In 1955 doctors found a cancerous mass near his collarbone, possibly linked to radiation exposure at Los Alamos. He died in 1957, aged 53. A crater on the Moon bears his name.
Source: John von Neumann
