"Who Got Einstein's Office"

[fiefoe]

Von Neumann is the most likable character so far.

• As soon as he was finished with one formula he'd zip it away with the eraser and replace it with another one. He'd do this again and again, one right after the other .. "Proof by erasure," his listeners called it.
• (On his computer project:) "...to that of Professor Veblen who simplemindedly welcomes the advances of science regardless of the direction in which they seem to be carrying us." (The minutes were taken by Veblen himself, who was known to slip in an acerbic comment or two.)
• Towards the end of (the interview in his house), von Neumann asked me if I always traveled with the dog. But of course it wasn't my dog, and it wasn't his either, but von Neumann-being a diplomatic,middle-European type person-he kindly avoided mentioning it until the end.
• But above that level, he says, "the phenomenon of synthesis, if properly arranged, can become explosive." A race of metal men could arise from a collection of nuts, bolts, and other parts bumping around in a primordial automata soup. John von Neumann, the Charles Darwin of the robots.
  

__ (Jonathan) Edwards wanted to demonstrate his faith in the wonders of modern science. So he volunteered himself for an inoculation, got smallpox, and died.
__  Why were the mathematicians the ones who were fomenting all this trouble? One member explains: "You know what they say about mathematicians, that everything they can get done in a day-because it's so concentrated and takes so much out of them-they can do in a few hours in the morning and then they've got the rest of the day to bug other people."

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