View Source: JohnVonNeumann - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A mathematician who was an early pioneer of ComputerScience, who developed the concept of an abstract machine, with a [RAM] separated from the [CPU] by a [Bus], and much work on automata (see FiniteStateMachine) and [RandomNumberGenerator]s. (Of course, he didn't do all this by himself - some of his work built on AlanTuring's ideas.) Another area he is well-known for is GameTheory.

Modern computer designs are sometimes known as the "von Neumann architecture", or perhaps "the von Neumann bottleneck" when talking about all data travelling back and forth along the [Bus] between the [CPU] and the [RAM] and [HardDisk](s).

He was a Hungarian who left Europe for the United States as he saw World War 2 become inevitable. During the war he did calculations to determine the optimal altitude to detonate an atomic bomb to cause the most damage.

See also:
* [OpenDirectory listing on John Von Neumann | http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/History/Pioneers/Neumann,_John_von/]

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Last edited on Sunday, August 15, 2004 11:02:25 pm by AristotlePagaltzis

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