john von neumann

2 definitions found

john von neumann - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  John von Neumann
      n 1: United States mathematician who contributed to the
           development of atom bombs and of stored-program digital
           computers (1903-1957) [syn: von Neumann, Neumann, John von Neumann
           ]

john von neumann - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  John von Neumann
  von Neumann, John
  
     <person> /jon von noy'mahn/ Born 1903-12-28, died 1957-02-08.
  
     A Hungarian-born mathematician who did pioneering work in
     quantum physics, game theory, and computer science.  He
     contributed to the USA's Manhattan Project that built the
     first atomic bomb.
  
     von Neumann was invited to Princeton University in 1930, and
     was a mathematics professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies
      from its formation in 1933 until his death.
  
     From 1936 to 1938 Alan Turing was a visitor at the Institute
     and completed a Ph.D. dissertation under von Neumann's
     supervision.  This visit occurred shortly after Turing's
     publication of his 1934 paper "On Computable Numbers with an
     Application to the Entscheidungs-problem" which involved the
     concepts of logical design and the universal machine.  von
     Neumann must have known of Turing's ideas but it is not clear
     whether he applied them to the design of the IAS Machine ten
     years later.
  
     While serving on the BRL Scientific Advisory Committee, von
     Neumann joined the developers of ENIAC and made some
     critical contributions.  In 1947, while working on the design
     for the successor machine, EDVAC, von Neumann realized that
     ENIAC's lack of a centralized control unit could be overcome
     to obtain a rudimentary stored program computer.  He also
     proposed the fetch-execute cycle.  His ideas led to what is
     now often called the von Neumann architecture.
  
     (http://sis.pitt.edu/~mbsclass/is2000/hall_of_fame/vonneuma.htm).
  
     (http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/VonNeumann.html).
  
     (http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/54nord/).
  
     (2004-01-14)