# Von Neumann was the most brilliant man of the 20th century **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 26, 2014, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013 "2014-04-26T02:18:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![thanatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@thanatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thanatic)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/1 "2014-04-26T02:18:40Z")
in terms of raw brain power… many consider him the last great universal mathematician…someone that had a serious grasp in many fields… i rate him above Einstein, honestly… ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/2 "2014-04-26T02:23:38Z")
How does he compare to Ed Witten? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/3 "2014-04-26T02:55:13Z")
> [@thanatic](#): > > in terms of raw brain power… > > many consider him the last great universal mathematician…someone that had a serious grasp in many fields… > > i rate him above Einstein, honestly… [What kind of game are you playing here?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=719907) ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/4 "2014-04-26T02:57:39Z")
I look forward to this thread being as **or even more** enlightening than any of the OP’s other threads on this subject. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/5 "2014-04-26T06:59:07Z")
Much as I like him (he was my first advisor’s advisor.) I vote for Claude Shannon. His master’s thesis was the invention of digital logic - the use of vacuum tubes to implement Boolean functions. Then he invented information theory, and my information theory professor said that most work in that area was refining his proofs. Then he was one of the first to describe computer chess, and was also a good juggler. My logic design professor at MIT, who was pretty well known himself, was in awe of Shannon. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/6 "2014-04-26T13:15:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > [What kind of game are you playing here?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=719907) Time to update the list. Can you imagine if he had these guys’ names tattooed on his arm below a heart? He’d have to keep crossing them out and adding a new one below it. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/7 "2014-04-27T09:19:45Z")
What you now need is for this thread to spawn two copies of itself… ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/8 "2014-04-27T09:47:43Z")
I still vote Howard Morris as the greatest man of all time. Who else could have imbued Ernest T. Bass with such humor and pathos and chaotic awesomeness, directed Doris Day in _With Six You Get Egg Roll_ with such perfection she stopped making movies thereafter, and created the Hamburglar from nothingness not unlike the creation of Eve from Adam’s McRib? Truly this man was the son of Og. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/9 "2014-04-27T17:14:24Z")
Though I do like the image of Einstein as a sitcom main character opening the door and with a look and sound of disgust saying “Hell:rolleyes: von Neumann…”. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/10 "2014-04-28T00:03:38Z")
When it comes to geniuses I’m partial to artists. I think Michelangelo was the greatest mind ever (and pair of hands.) Oh wait: MA was neither a scientist nor of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/11 "2014-04-28T02:07:51Z")
I think Charles Proteus Steinmetz would have to be right up there. > **[Google](https://www.google.com/#q=Charles+proteus+steinmetz)** > > Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. I read his biography in the sixth grade, after reading a story about him in our reading book. A very remarkable person. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/12 "2014-04-28T04:18:27Z")
Von Neumann was a military industrial complex cheerleader of Edward Teller level proportions. That is a huge strike against him in my opinion. I’ll take peace loving Big Al over who to spend the afternoon with in that contest. Let’s have a comparison of contributions from these great minds, I’ll start with Einstein, since I know so little about Von Neumann. 1. Photoelectric effect 2. Brownian motion 3. Special relativity 4. Matter–energy equivalence 5. Special relativity yes, during edit time I see I listed it twice. 6. Capillary attraction 7. Quantized atomic vibrations 8. Wave–particle duality 9. General relativity and the equivalence principle (the most far reaching contribution) 10. Bose–Einstein statistics 11. Wormholes 12. Equations of motion 13. Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox So, educamate us. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/von-neumann-was-the-most-brilliant-man-of-the-20th-century/687013/13 "2014-04-28T04:44:20Z")
Wow. I thought this thread would be brimming with cranky Tesla fanbois.