There is an excellent quote by von Neumann that I've used to proselytize to people who think that quantum computers will 'only' offer quantitative speedups over conventional computers: 1/4

I think we tweeted this before, but DO save 40 mins of your week to listen to Ananyo Bhattacharya interviewed by The Human Podcast
The Smartest Human Ever: John Von Neumann
youtube.com/watch?v=qmMymW…
Then...

Loved hearing your perspectives live, Ananyo Bhattacharya! Von Neumann was a fascinating character, and I appreciate you bringing a “biography of his ideas” to the world!

You can pick up the lovely Norton hardback edition of ‘The Man from the Future’ at almost half price at the moment from Amazon.com
I found the book hard to find in bookstores in Berkeley but of course support your local store if you can amazon.com/gp/aw/d/132400…

This was great fun! Thanks to anton (𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢), Anna Gát 🧭 and everyone who joined us! If anyone's thinking of participating in an Interintellect 🧭 salon, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

Today in 5.5 hours! Hope to chat with some of you soon during this Interintellect salon, which will be expertly hosted by anton (𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢)...

This was awesome BTW! Thanks to the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing and to everyone that turned up and made it brilliant! 100 people!! John von Neumann's such a draw! Even without a Nolan biopic!

‘Elusive’ by Frank Close is the closest thing to a biography of Higgs we’ll get. My review of ‘Elusive’ from 2022, exactly ten years after the discovery of the particle named after him amp.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul…

Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, dies aged 94 theguardian.com/science/2024/a…

In 1973, a group of scientists spent 74 minutes chasing totality by hopping inside Concorde Prototype 001 flying at Mach 2! jalopnik.com/here-s-how-mod…

The abacus finger theory allows to mentally perform arithmetic calculations just by using certain special finger combinations.

[📍 Kerala, India]

Another unforgivable plot change! John von Neumann has been erased! Instead, we get that wannabe Copernicus!😾

Eye of Mordor

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Shakuntala Devi, the human computer.

She once gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds. The answer was verifiedby the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written.

Nice title from The Economist for their nugget on the total eclipse tonight! Enjoy if you’re lucky enough to be in the path! The last one I saw was in Kolkata in 1980 in near perfect conditions.

Real theorists would have written up a few papers explaining the anomaly and submitted to the ArXiv lickety-split… 😂 #3BodyProblem