John von Neumann
Name:
John von Neumann
Born: December 28, 1903, Budapest, Austria-Hungary
Death: February 8, 1957 (age 53)
Computer related contributions
- Help create von Neumann architecture, a single-memory stored program architecture still in use today.
- Although not described as a computer virus, John von Neumann is the first to describe how a computer program could reproduce itself.
- Helped develop the Monte Carlo method, an algorithm to solve complicated problems to be approximated using random numbers.
- Developed a process of generating pseudorandom numbers.
- Created as creating the merge sort algorithm.
- Created the field of cellular automata.
Publications
- Mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics
- Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
- First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
- Collected Works of John von Neumann
- Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
Honors and awards
- Generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in modern history.
- Presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Dwight Eisenhower on February 15, 1956.
- Awarded the Enrico Fermi Award in 1956.
- On of four scientists commemorated on a US postage stamp.
- The crater Von Neumann on the Moon is named after him.
- The John von Neumann Computing Center in Princeton, New Jersey was named in his honor.
- The professional society of Hungarian computer scientists, John von Neumann Computer Society, is named after John von Neumann.