Comment by mark_l_watson
9 years ago
As a young post doc at the Institute for Advance Study, my Dad knew von Neuman, who according to my Dad, tended to work late at night and work with loud music playing - very much like young hackers today!
9 years ago
As a young post doc at the Institute for Advance Study, my Dad knew von Neuman, who according to my Dad, tended to work late at night and work with loud music playing - very much like young hackers today!
I remember reading a similar anecdote in the book Turing's Cathedral, where it suggested that von Neumann had a particular preference for loud marches. It also makes me think about what Stanislaw Ulam wrote of von Neumann[1]:
"If one has to divide mathematicians, as Poincaré proposed, into two types—those with visual and those with auditory intuition—Johnny perhaps belonged to the latter."
[1] http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958-...
Interesting.
Not completely similar but somewhat interesting, here's an interview where Feynman admits to not being "great" (for lack of a better word) at music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtuNXWT0mo
“Lot’s of people love music and I never could carry a tune.”
I've read a funny anecdote (no idea whether it is accurate) that von Neumann's loud gramophone music was a big source of frustration for his office neighbor, Albert Einstein.