John von Neumann Quotes

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• Computers are like humans - they do everything except think.

  John von Neumann

  Thinking, Computer, Humans

  148 Copy quote

• If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.

  John von Neumann

  Believe, Math, Simple

  John von Neumann's remarks as keynote speaker at the first national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery (1947) as quoted in "Archaeology of computers: Reminiscences, 1945-1947" by Franz L. Alt, Communications of the ACM, Volume 15, Issue 7, special issue: Twenty-fifth anniversary of the Association for Computing Machinery (p. 694), July 1972.

  267 Copy quote

• Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

  John von Neumann

  Religion, Complicated, Truth Is

  John Von Neumann, F. Br¢dy, Tibor V mos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.626, World Scientific

  145 Copy quote

• Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.

  John von Neumann

  Math, Science, Men

  Quoted in Gary Zukav, The DancingWu Li Masters (1979)

  156 Copy quote

• You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you tell me precisely what it is a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that.

  John von Neumann

  Justice, Machines, Ifs

  176 Copy quote

• There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about.

  John von Neumann

  Talking, Programming, Knows

  136 Copy quote

• Science, as well as technology, will in the near and in the farther future increasingly turn from problems of intensity, substance, and energy, to problems of structure, organization, information, and control.

  John von Neumann

  Technology, Organization, Energy

  139 Copy quote

• All stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control.

  John von Neumann

  Meteorology, Process, Unstable

  123 Copy quote

• The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work-that is, correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area.

  John von Neumann

  Science, Trying, Mathematics

  John Von Neumann, F. Bródy, Tibor Vámos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.628, World Scientific

  124 Copy quote

• There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't.

  John von Neumann

  God, Easier, Ifs

  "John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence and Much More". Book by Norman Macrae, 1992.

  116 Copy quote

• Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.

  John von Neumann

  Mean, Science, Numbers

  133 Copy quote

• Problems are often stated in vague terms... because it is quite uncertain what the problems really are.

  John von Neumann

  Problem, Uncertain, Term

  102 Copy quote

• With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.

  John von Neumann

  Elephants, Four, Fit

  Attributed to John von Neumann by Enrico Fermi in "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" by Freeman Dyson in "Nature", Issue 427 (p. 297), www.nature.com. January 22, 2004.

  125 Copy quote

• Technological possibilities are irresistible to man. If man can go to the moon, he will. If he can control the climate, he will.

  John von Neumann

  Moon, Men, Climate

  88 Copy quote

• I am thinking about something much more important than bombs. I am thinking about computers.

  John von Neumann

  Thinking, Important, Bombs

  99 Copy quote

• It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.

  John von Neumann

  Selfish, Law, People

  87 Copy quote

• When we talk mathematics, we may be discussing a secondary language built on the primary language of the nervous system.

  John von Neumann

  May, Language, Nervous

  "John Von Neumann, 1903-1957". Book edited by John C. Oxtoby, Billy J. Pettis and G. B. Price, 1958.

  104 Copy quote

• If you tell me precisely what it is a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that.

  John von Neumann

  Machines, Ifs, I Can

  37 Copy quote

• The total subject of mathematics is clearly too broad for any of us. I do not think that any mathematician since Gauss has covered it uniformly and fully; even Hilbert did not and all of us are of considerably lesser width quite apart from the question of depth than Hilbert.

  John von Neumann

  Thinking, Depth, Mathematics

  118 Copy quote

• You don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in.

  John von Neumann

  World, Responsible, Being Responsible

  John von Neumann's advice to Richard Feynman as quoted in "Los Alamos from Below" in Richard Feynman "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", 1985.

  90 Copy quote

• By and large it is uniformly true in mathematics that there is a time lapse between a mathematical discovery and the moment when it is useful; and that this lapse of time can be anything from 30 to 100 years, in some cases even more; and that the whole system seems to function without any direction, without any reference to usefulness, and without any desire to do things which are useful.

  John von Neumann

  Years, Discovery, Desire

  "The Role of Mathematics in the Sciences and in Society". John von Neumann's address to Princeton alumni (1954) as quoted in "John von Neumann: Collected Works" edited by A. H. Taub, 1963.

  89 Copy quote

• There is no point in being precise if you do not even know what you are talking about.

  John von Neumann

  Talking, Knows, No Point

  64 Copy quote

• The calculus was the first achievement of modern mathematics and it is difficult to overestimate its importance. I think it defines more unequivocally than anything else the inception of modern mathematics; and the system of mathematical analysis, which is its logical development, still constitutes the greatest technical advance in exact thinking.

  John von Neumann

  Teaching, Math, Thinking

  John Von Neumann, F. Bródy, Tibor Vámos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.620, World Scientific

  96 Copy quote

• I would like to make a confession which may seem immoral: I do not believe absolutely in Hilbert space any more.

  John von Neumann

  Believe, Space, May

  "John Von Neumann: Selected Letters".

  89 Copy quote

• The most vitally characteristic fact about mathematics is, in my opinion, its quite peculiar relationship to the natural sciences, or more generally, to any science which interprets experience on a higher than purely descriptive level.

  John von Neumann

  Levels, Facts, Peculiar

  John Von Neumann, F. Bródy, Tibor Vámos (1995). “The Neumann Compendium”, p.618, World Scientific

  17 Copy quote

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