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“The young von Neumann made an instant impact on his new tutors. His first mentor, Gábor Szego˝, who would later lead Stanford University’s maths department, was moved to tears after their first meeting.”
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
“[Von Neumann's childhood home's] library’s centrepiece [was] the Allgemeine Geschichte, a massive history of the world edited by the German historian Wilhelm Oncken, which began in Ancient Egypt and concluded with a biography of Wilhelm I, the first German emperor, commissioned by the Kaiser himself. When von Neumann became embroiled in American politics after he emigrated, he would sometimes avoid arguments that were threatening to become too heated by citing (sometimes word for word) the outcome of some obscurely related affair in antiquity that he had read about in Oncken as a child.”
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
“Philosophy is a dangerous thing for any dogmatic religion; it makes people think.”
― Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru: Sneak peek into World History and Independent India Before and After Biography Book by Jawaharlal Nehru Penguin Books
― Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru: Sneak peek into World History and Independent India Before and After Biography Book by Jawaharlal Nehru Penguin Books
“The best estimates of Trinity’s power put the figure somewhere between 20,000 and 22,000 tons. Oppenheimer reached for poetry, recalling a verse from ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, which he had read in the original Sanskrit. ‘Now I am become Death,’ he said, ‘the destroyer of worlds.’ Bainbridge was pithier. ‘Now we are all sons of bitches,’ he told Oppenheimer.”
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
“[Euclid's] second postulate, for example, says that any line segment may be extended indefinitely. That is difficult for even the most querulous to argue with. The fifth, on the other hand, states that if two lines are drawn which intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side (labelled a and b in the diagram below) is less than two right angles (i.e. 180°), then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough. If, on the other hand, a and b do add up to 180°, the two lines never meet so are said to be parallel.
To mathematicians, that looks less like a postulate and more like a theorem in need of proving.”
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
To mathematicians, that looks less like a postulate and more like a theorem in need of proving.”
― The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann
CFAR Book Club
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A group for alumni and other members of the CFAR community share their reading lists and activity.
Effective Altruists
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Recommend books, see what other people are reading, start a discussion, what have you. N.B. This group is not actively moderated and doesn't have any ...more
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Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
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Users of Less Wrong, a community blog dedicated to refining the art of human rationality.
NUPA Book Club
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— last activity May 08, 2025 11:00AM
For members (past and present!) of the Northwestern University Postdoctoral Association Book Club
Ishan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ishan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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