Beginnings of a revolution - The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution - page 4

he would believe in von Neumann, otherwise not. Of course this was von
Neumann's first query. 3

The reason why von Neumann was so interested in the ENIAC was because of
his work for the Manhattan atom bomb project at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The physicists at Los Alamos had a bottleneck in their schedule to produce a
plutonium bomb. This was due to the complex calculations needed to model
the spherical implosive lens for the bomb ( Fig. 1.5 ). The lens was formed by
accurately positioned explosives that produced a spherical compression wave.
The wave would then compress the plutonium at the center of the sphere to
criticality and thereby start the nuclear chain reaction. Von Neumann had
asked Bush's Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) for sugges-
tions as to how this calculational bottleneck could be removed. He was advised
to look at three automatic calculator projects that OSRD was funding that
might deliver the increased computing power he needed. By the time he met
Goldstine, von Neumann had concluded that none of the suggested projects,
which included the Mark I, an electromechanical computer created by IBM
and Howard Aiken at Harvard, would be of any help. The OSRD had made no
mention of the Army-funded ENIAC project, since this was regarded by Bush
and others as just a waste of money. The ENIAC team were therefore glad to
welcome the famous von Neumann into their camp, and they had regular dis-
cussions over the next few months.
The ENIAC was completed in November 1945, too late to help the war
effort. It was eight feet high, eighty feet long, and weighed thirty tons. It con-
tained approximately 17,500 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors,
1,500 relays, and 6,000 manual switches. It consumed 174 kilowatts of power -
enough to power several thousand laptops. Amazingly, only fifty years later, all
of this monster amount of hardware could be implemented on a single chip
( Fig. 1.6 ). Fortunately, the vacuum tubes turned out to be far more reliable than

Fig. 1.4 A section of the original ENIAC
machine on display at the University of
Pennsylvania.

Fig. 1.5 A schematic diagram of the
spherical implosion lens required to
start the nuclear reaction in a plutonium
bomb. John von Neumann's search for
an automatic device that would speed
up the complex calculations needed
to model the lens led to his interest in
ENIAC.

B.1.2 John von Neumann (1903-57) was born in Budapest in the family of a wealthy banker. After
graduating with a PhD in mathematics from Budapest ELTE and a diploma in chemical engineer-
ing from Zurich ETH, he won a scholarship in Gottingen and worked with David Hilbert on his
ambitious program on the “axiomatization” of mathematics. In 1933, von Neumann was offered
an academic position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and was one of the insti-
tute's first four professors.
Von Neumann's extraordinary talent for mathematics and languages was evident from early in
his childhood. At university, his teacher George Polya at the ETH in Zurich said of him:

He is the only student of mine I was ever intimidated by. He was so quick. There was a seminar
for advanced students in Zurich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came
to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann did not
say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the
blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann. B1

Von Neumann was a genuine polymath who made pioneering contributions to game theory,
quantum mechanics, and computing. He also hosted legendary cocktail parties, but his driving
skills apparently left something to be desired:

Von Neumann was an aggressive and apparently reckless driver. He supposedly totaled a car
every year or so. An intersection in Princeton was nicknamed “Von Neumann Corner” for all
the auto accidents he had there. B2