Von Neumann: The Interaction of Mathematics and Computing

Abstract

The title of this chapter is: Von Neumann, the interaction of mathematics and computing, but it is very hard to separate sharply mathematics from physics in this connection. I’d go further and stress the very great possibilities that the same set of ideas, the same set of technological developments, can have in other natural sciences — primarily biology, for example, and that soon. One could call this the “ music of the future,” and I think this aspect of the future is something that should not be neglected, even in a chapter devoted to the past.