Book Review: The Man From The Future

John von Neumann invented the digital computer. The fields of game theory and cellular automata. Important pieces of modern economics, set theory, ...

July 13, 2022
1:54 PM

John von Neumann invented the digital computer. The fields of game theory and cellular automata. Important pieces of modern economics, set theory, and particle physics. A substantial part of the technology behind the atom and hydrogen bombs. Several whole fields of mathematics I hadn't previously heard of, like 'operator algebras', 'continuous geometry', and 'ergodic theory'. The Man From The Future, by Ananyo Bhattacharya, touches on all these things. But you don't read a von Neumann biography to learn more about the invention of ergodic theory.

Scott Alexander