JOHN VON NEUMANN - Father of the Computer

December 28, 1903, Budapest – February 8, 1957, Washington

Mathematician, “Father” of the computer

The achievements of John von Neumann (János Neumann) have endured in several scientific areas. He set the foundations for the theory of critical mass, and was the inventor of game theory.

Neumann received a PhD in mathematics in Budapest at the age of 26, and a year later was teaching at Princeton University in the United States. His first decades of work were theoretical, but after 1940, he began studying applications. Neumann played a major role in research to release atomic energy. He was a member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1954 until his death. He published about 150 articles on his research.

In the final years of his life, Neumann was concerned with biological self-reproduction. His name is best known for his work in computer science. His proposal led to redesigning the oscilloscope, originally used for maintenance and construction, turning it into a computer display, making computer operations visible for the first time in the history of technology.

Neumann discovered that computers could not only store data, but also could save operational instructions, in other words programs. He described the theory in 1945 and the first computer based on the Neumann principle was constructed in 1952. Modern computers are designed on that foundation.

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