- Person
- John von Neumann
- Lived
- 1903–1957
- Field
- Mathematics & computing
- From
- Hungarian-American
The story
John von Neumann, the Budapest-born mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, became interested in weather prediction as one of the most promising uses of the new electronic computers. In 1946 he founded a Meteorological Project at the institute, and by 1950 he and the meteorologist Jule Charney had used the ENIAC computer to make the first numerical weather forecasts.
Having helped launch computer weather forecasting, von Neumann thought about what the same tools might reveal about the climate as a whole. He proposed a research programme that would start with short-range forecasts, then move to long-range forecasts of the atmosphere's self-perpetuating features, the approach that grew into climate modelling. When Norman Phillips produced encouraging results in 1955, von Neumann organised a conference at Princeton on applying numerical methods to the general circulation of the atmosphere, which led to a research section now known as the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
In 1955 he also observed that the climate might already be changing because of human activity. Carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry's burning of coal and oil, he wrote, more than half of it during the previous generation, might have altered the atmosphere's composition enough to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit. The idea that carbon dioxide could warm the planet had been suggested by Svante Arrhenius in the late nineteenth century; von Neumann was suggesting that the warming might already be under way.
He recognised that humanity was gaining the power to affect the climate on a global scale. He even discussed schemes such as darkening the polar ice to absorb more sunlight, but he urged caution, noting that what could be done was no guide to what should be done, and that warming or cooling would affect sea levels, coastlines, rainfall and glaciers. In 1956 he warned Congress that climate control could have military uses more dangerous even than intercontinental missiles. His 1955 essay Can We Survive Technology? considered a future that included deliberate climate change.
His remarks were among the early scientific acknowledgements of what is now called global warming.
Why it matters
Von Neumann's foresight, and the computer models he championed, helped lay the groundwork for modern climate science.
About John von Neumann
Budapest-born mathematician whose 1945 EDVAC report set out the stored-program design behind almost every computer, and who helped found game theory and modern quantum mechanics.
More about John von Neumann
- Von Neumann's ergodic theorem earned 'immortality'John von Neumann's 1932 papers on ergodic theory were so important that Paul Halmos said they alone would have guaranteed him mathematical immortality.
- Von Neumann launched computer weather forecastingIn 1950 John von Neumann and Jule Charney used ENIAC to make the first numerical weather forecasts; in 1955 routine computer forecasting began in the US.
- John von Neumann founded game theoryJohn von Neumann proved the minimax theorem in 1928 and, with Oskar Morgenstern, published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944, founding game theory.
- Von Neumann's IAS computer was copied worldwideThe IAS machine John von Neumann built in Princeton from 1946 became the blueprint for early computers worldwide, and its design shaped IBM's first scientific computers.
- John von Neumann invented merge sort in 1945In 1945 John von Neumann invented merge sort, one of the most widely used methods for putting data in order, in what Donald Knuth called his first computer program.
- Von Neumann helped create the Monte Carlo methodWith Stanislaw Ulam, John von Neumann helped develop the Monte Carlo method, using random numbers on computers to solve problems too complex for direct calculation.
- Von Neumann gave quantum mechanics its mathematicsIn his 1932 book Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann set out the first rigorous mathematical framework for quantum theory.
- Von Neumann designed a machine that copies itselfIn the late 1940s John von Neumann designed a self-reproducing 'universal constructor' and, with Stanislaw Ulam, created the field of cellular automata.
- John von Neumann wrote the blueprint for modern computersJohn von Neumann's 1945 report on the EDVAC gave the first published description of the stored-program computer, the design behind almost every computer since.
Sources
- John von Neumann Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.