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Sunday, December 24, 1972

turing einstein von neumann 3 mathematicians essential to life on earth

you don't need to be able to do the maths of these 3 greatest of human intellects to be informed by their discoveries; i would go as far as to say in this tech age that any teacher, of 10+ or member of government who isn't informed should consider another job

turing has one huge significance - he proved a particular way in which the human mind will always be ble to innovate what computers cannot- today the analytical capacity of most smart devices may be greater than your brain especially it can be connected to any number of other digital brains

but turing proved that a computer can never know what data its looking at in such senses as it is whole or partial; could data be connected at a more detailed level ; turing also proved why recursion enables humans to improve learning cycle after cycle in a way that computers can never qute match

turing's findings dovetail nicely with einstein's most general finding- einstein proved that when scientific man says there is noting left to innovate he means unless we model interactions at a smaller/deeper level than our measuremnts approximated

einstein alsohad models on exponential consequences which led to his famous letters with gandhi- their gist if the human race is to survive one day all leaders will need to long-term and trustworthy like gandhi

einstein also had comments about western education - why dont we give kids any experience in team work and collaborating which in the 21st century will be far more important than competing and soiloising

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von neumann is one of the most interesting human stories i can imagine - i am biassed my dad norman macrar wrote the bio of von neumann

neuman was born in budapest hungrayin 1903 dying in usa 1957- he spent just under half his life in usa arriving 1931- you can split his american life nto two halves; up to 1945 he became the man america relied on most to develop nuclear; he spent in last 12 years to 1957 doing perhpas 100 years of work- his immediate legacy was the moon race and the programable computer's start up of 2 artificial intel labs- one pacific cast facing out of stanford the other atlantic coast facing out of mit

when nearly 200 nations met at the san francisco opera house to give birth to the united nations in 1945 the chances for species survival looked poor; by 1957 von neumann had linked together tech that gave humans hope all over the world

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