John Von Neumann Shot Lightning From His Arse
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
theintrinsicperspective.comResearchstory
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John Von NeumannAnecdotesMyth-Busting
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John Von Neumann
Anecdotes
Myth-Busting
The article 'John von Neumann Shot Lightning from His Arse' is met with skepticism by HN commenters, who question the validity of anecdotes about von Neumann's abilities and compare them to other exaggerated stories.
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- 01Story posted
Nov 14, 2025 at 2:18 PM EST
about 2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 14, 2025 at 3:02 PM EST
44m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
3 comments in 0-2h
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Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 15, 2025 at 8:10 AM EST
about 2 months ago
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Discussion (5 comments)
Showing 5 comments
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
about 2 months ago
1 replyI hope Wikipedia gets updated
tim333
about 2 months ago
That article is not especially protected so you can go in and edit if you feel so inclined. I edit sometimes and it can be kind of fun. You have to have citations for the things changed though or it'll get reverted.
Neywiny
about 2 months ago
I had a professor for a computer architecture class who would make up stories of smart things von Neumann could have said. That's how bad this is
lern_too_spel
about 2 months ago
He was the Jeff Dean of his age, but somewhere along the way, people decided to take the "facts" seriously. https://github.com/LRitzdorf/TheJeffDeanFacts
discoutdynamite
about 2 months ago
My second favorite Johnny story is how he did the math for the explosive lenses on the atom bomb, overnight. What we now call partial derivatives, was not yet rigourously proven and studied, but he signed off on it, and it worked. For the sake of the contention in the article, I am distinctly thinking of Grigori Perelman as almost an echo to this phenomenon. He felt his contributions were useful but not miraculous, and himself almost ordinary, that he was being recognized more for sake of national/racial partisanship.
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ID: 45930838Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:26:54 PM
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