George Dyson, who is an excellent speaker/writer on the history of technology and science innovation, is talking about how Von Neumann created a great environment for research at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton.
He is recounting the problems that Dr. Kurt Goedel faced trying to emigrate back into the USA during the early 1940's. Goedel was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century but he was also a very paranoid fellow, apparently.
In any event, Goedel's work led to Turing which led to Von Neumann's work on computing. Von Neuman is credited as one of the creators of modern computing.
George has clearly spent a lot of time digging thru various archives to piece together this fascinating bit of historical brain candy. One amusing little tidbit is the fact that the Institute's kitchen staff complained that the engineers building the first computers at IAS consumed too much tea and sugar. Early example of the alpha-geek diet of caffeine and sucrose!
1. Goedel was actually one the two people who pulled the rug out from under Von Neumann early in his career. Goedel was first when he produced his incompleteness theorem disproving the work the Von Neumann had published a few years earlier (at the age of 24 I think) which appeared to have axiomized mathematics (and had garnered him much acclaim for those brief years). After this defeat Von Neumann turned to physics and churned out a formula that united the wave and particle theories of the electron. A huge deal, but another physicst Paul Dirac made the same discovery simultaneously, and his formula used far less abstruse maths than Von Neumann's so in the end his was the more popular.
Of course Johnny recovered nicely with yet more accomplishments, including his work on the computer, game theory and inspiring the character of Dr. Strangelove.
Posted at 5:46AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Dav