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, in James R. Newman The World of Mathematics
Young man, in mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.
John von Neumann
- John von Neumann (Wikipedia)
John “Johnny” von Neumann (/vɒn ˈnɔɪmən/; Hungarian: Neumann János Lajos, pronounced [ˈnɒjmɒn ˈjaːnoʃ ˈlɒjoʃ]; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time and was said to be “the last representative of the great mathematicians who were equally at home in both pure and applied mathematics”. He integrated pure and applied sciences.
