Ananyo Battacharya.
ANANYO BHATTACHARYA: JOHN VON NEUMANN BIOGRAPHY
the MAN FROM THE FUTURE (2021)
A Finanancial Times and Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year
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John von Neumann (born 1903) was one of the most eminent mathematicians of the twentieth century. He made important contributions to statistics, economics, mathematics, physics and computing. He was also a pioneer of game theory and quantum physics. The son of a Budapest banker, he was a child prodigy, who when aged six could in his head divide two eight digit numbers. At the same age he could converse in Ancient Greek. Von Neumann and his siblings were taught by a governess, their lessons including English, French, German and Italian. By the time he was eight, von Neumann had a good knowledge of fiferential and integral calculus. And at the age of 19 he published two important papers on mathematics. In 1926 he graduated in chemistry from ETH Zurich, and in the same year obtained his PhD in mathematics. In 1929 he moved to Princeton Univesity as a visiting lecturer and in 1933 was appointed a professor at the Institute of Advanced Study, New Jersey. During the Second World War he worked on the Manhattan Project, developing the mathematical models used in the design of the atomic bomb. He died of cancer in 1957, at the age of 53.
John Gribbin, reviewing the book in the Literary Review, wrote: ‘Bhattacharya is a first-class science writer with an impeccable pedigree and he does the best job I have seen of explaining the significance of von Neumann's work across many different fields. . . If you are interested in the development in the 20th century of science that impacts all our lives today, there can be no better place to seek information than this book. . . A fine tribute to von Neumann's genius and his contributions to science.’
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Ananya Bhattacharya read Physics at Oxford University and obtained his PhD in protein crystallography at Imperial College London. Currently on the staff of the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, his previous posts include the chief online editor of Nature, and science correspondent of the Economist.
