John von Neumann (Norman Macrae)

ISBN: 0-679-41308-1

Page 353: Johnny remained reasonably friendly with everybody during this, although he hated joint statements of any kind. Everyone came under pressure to sign them, including one or two of the younger staff who privately disagreed. One of Johnny’s personal definitions of a scholar was a person who did not sign manifestos that tabled joint emotions. In any complicated situation any thoughtful man should want to express his opinions in his own words, instead of baying in a pack like hounds.

Page 369: Then comes the hour when people normally go to sleep. Johnny goes to sleep too. But to him sleep is part of his work. He believes much of mathematics is done sub-consciously. He will go to sleep serenely with an unsolved problem and wake at three in the morning with the answer: his mind has done it for him while he has slept. Then he goes to his desk and phones his associates. One of the requirements for an associate is that he not mind being awakened in the middle of the night. Johnny will work until morning - half his books are in his bedroom - and then go to his office as chipper as a lark.

Page 371: Dr. von Neumann's driving reflects his mathematical interests. He loves traffic jams because they present a problem: how can so many different bodies get through the same space at different rates of speed? He will twist and manoeuvre through a crowed street ("too fast", says his wife) and just make it, delighted that he has calculated correctly. On the open road where nothing is in his way he drives slowly - with no problem to solve, his interest lapses.

Pages 377-378: It was known that Johnny's illness might lead to him talking in his sleep, and Colonel Ford was told to place soldiers to ensure that he did not shout out military secrets. This was not entirely successful. When Johnny started hallucinating in his sleep, he did so in Hungarian, which the soldier on guard did not understand. At least once Johnny summoned the soldier so that he could ring through a mild new idea he had for the air force in the middle of the night. His old associates on scientific subjects would have found this familiar, but the air force feared he was saying something very important with his last gasp.

These midnight calls probably led to the story that he sent screams from his deathbed through the dark, and that "Johnny von Neumann, who knows so well how to live, did not know how to die." He did admit his despair to some visitors. He could not visualize a world which did not include himself thinking within it. Some visitors say he was rude to Klari at this time. She was inclined to want to quiet those who would try to make him think while he was dying. He wanted to think as long as he could.

Page 379: Godel sent a letter of condolence about the illness in German, but soon wafted off on to mathematical symbols, asking Johnny's view on some impossibly abstruse problem.