John von Neumann is probably best well known by laymen for his contributions to computer science. His interest in computers most strongly began while he was working for the military in WWII. He was attempting to solve problems of hydrodynamics related to his weapons research (Gillispie). The complexity of these problems, and later the new problems presented by nuclear energy, led von Neumann to the field of computing. In 1944, von Neumann began working on ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, which was being developed at the University of Pennsylvania. It was von Neumann who, with his crucial contributions, that made ENIAC not just a calculator, but a primitive stored program computer ( Kov á cs ). The most important concept of which is storing program instructions in memory just as is done with data. The first test runs of the computer were used to run computations for the hydrogen bomb (Goldstine). In 1946 ENIAC was handed over to the US governme...
Although not a trained physicist, John von Neumann contributed to quantum mechanics by describing it in an elegant way, more attractive than Heisenberg's method (Rédei 2001). His success in the field, and other fields, was his ability to immerse himself in the fields rather than simply approach it from a mathematical standpoint. "[T]he war introduced me to great parts of mathematical physics and applied mathematics which I had neglected before, and I feel that I received intellectually a good deal more than I gave." -John von Neumann in a letter to the Commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission (Rédei 2005) Commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Hargittai, B., & Hargittai, I. (2016). Wisdom Of The Martians Of Science: In Their Own Words With Commentaries. Singapore: World Scientific. MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Hargittai, Balazs and István Hargittai. Wisdom of the Martians of Science: In Thei...