The Man from the Future
by Ananyo Bhattacharya · first published 2021
76% recommend24% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Easy-to-read, chronological biography of John von Neumann covering his work in mathematics, computing, game theory and more; suits readers curious how one mind shaped so many modern fields.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…book on the history of Maths. Will recommend. - Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges is a good mathematician's biography. I have not finished it, but fully intend to. - I have just read some of The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattyacharya is a biography of John von Neumann. It already seems very good and I plan to read through the end. - The Annotated Turing deals a lot with history and is a read of a lifetime.…
on “Ask HN: Any recommendation for a good History of Science book?” ↗Thank you! I recently read a great von Neumann biography (The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya) and I've thinking about the von Neumann probes ever since. Definitely agree with you on how von Neumann probes are typically represented as ships or machines, but I wanted to make…
on “I wrote a short story about von Neumann probes” ↗Highly recommend The Man from the Future biography of John von Neumann. We got The Martians for a steal because Europe was too hostile to minorities and we got the Manhattan Project and computers out of the deal. Never gonna have a brain drain…
on “MIT: 20% drop in incoming graduate students” ↗Book recommendation: The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Battacharya[0]. It’s a really good biography of John von Neumann. The book follows both his life and the impact of his work carried on by people who…
on “John von Neumann – The Role of Mathematics in the Sciences and in Society (1954)” ↗"The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann" by Ananyo Bhattacharya
on “Ask HN: What is the best thing you read in 2022?” ↗…enjoyed: Based on a True Story: (Not) A Memoir (Norm Macdonald - 2016) - Humor Deadlines Don’t Care if Janet Doesn’t Like Her Photo (David Thorne - 2021) - Humor (And other books by David Thorne) The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann (Ananyo Bhattacharya - 2022) - Documentary Memory Machines - The Evolution of Hypertext (Belinda Barnet) - Kinda about how the web was born and about interesting…
on “I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books” ↗> designed by John von Neumann. I can strongly recommend an excellent biography: The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya I knew of von Neumann because his name shows up many many times when studying computers. But I had no idea he had several equally monumental…
on “Reverse Engineering a Neural Network's Clever Solution to Binary Addition” ↗"The Man From The Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann" — a 2022 biography — is terrific. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/13/the-man-from-t... https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-man-from-th...…
on “John von Neumann Interview [video]” ↗Highly recommend The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya. Talks about this time plus many of his other contributions to e.g. game theory.
on “What John von Neumann did at Los Alamos (2020)” ↗Anyone stumbling on this thread: A man from the future - ananyo bhattacharya chronicles his life and it is thrilling. If anyone has any of the questions the OP has, the book explains them. There were plenty of open problems then, they just were so unexplored…
on “What John von Neumann did at Los Alamos (2020)” ↗…a lot more. I particularly enjoyed the bits about Albert Schweitzer, and the chapter on his late wife, how we host the souls of others crudely on our own hardware. Helpful book in the age of AI. The Man from the Future by Bhattacharya, a Von Neumann biography. Really helped understand the context of this great man’s achievements. On the Edge by Silver. The signal and the noise was a lot better (which I read last year)…
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗For a longer read, I can highly recommend the book "The Man from the Future" by Ananyo Bhattacharya. It's quite an easy read and extensively discusses the life and discoveries by John von Neumann in chronological order.
on “The Legend of von Neumann (1973) [pdf]” ↗…slavery. Other books I read this year, ask me anything about one of these books. I've added a + if I think its worth a recommendation Biography: Navalny by Dollbaum, Lallouet and Noble (p:280); The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya (p:354) + Sociology; Politics; Economics; Business: Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew S. Grove (p:224); The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (p:140); Winter is Coming by Garry…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023” ↗If this article was even a little interesting to you, I strongly recommend The Man from the Future.
on “How the game theory of John von Neumann transformed the 20th century” ↗He's my favourite mathematician too. Loved The Man from the Future book. Can we get a frontier model named after him perhaps? "Johnny" would be a great codename imo
on “The Legend of von Neumann (1973) [pdf]” ↗