Wow, the ending is brutal:

> At the end of May I left Szeged. I was grateful for all he had done, but it was only much later that I appreciated reasonably well his contribution to my education. On the overnight train from Budapest to Venice, a young Hungarian man accompanied by a young woman kindly asked me in poor German to leave them the compartment for the night. They had just been married that day and were beginning their honeymoon. On arrival at Venice the next morning, he opened the corridor window and got off the train, while his bride, who spoke only Hungarian, lowered their suitcase through the window. Then a terrible thing happened. The train pulled out, with her still on it. The poor girl was cut off from everything that she knew, everything she had been living with. I knew what she felt. Hadn't I too just been cut off from my previous life?

It __is__ better. It helps him explain his case as to why he chose to accept the Cutting Travelling Fellowship rather than work for Von Neumman, and he also mentions that the job was later split into 4 parts.

The original link on the other hand just dismisses this as "he fled to Hungary". True, but an incomplete truth.

Thanks for sharing this. "Once, after I suggested a problem, he[Frigyes Riesz] he repeated it slowly twice to make certain he understood. Then, absolute silence. After half an hour, he exclaimed "Ja uj. I have it. Yes, I have it.", and he leaned to me, his eyes full of joy and mischief. But that was the end of it. He never made me privy to his solution." - We can learn a lot by working with individuals like these, who sometimes reveal nothing about their method in solving a problem, evoking (mild) stress/frustration upon others until they too solve the problem or at least spend some good time thinking about it.

Mmm. In particular it notes that (a) in previous years the assistant had been only expected to do the first two parts of the job description and (b) after Lorch turned it down they ended up dividing the work between four assistants. So it's more of an example of an over-ambitious job description than the reality of being an assistant to von Neumann...

Nice post. About the article: it must have taken some balls (for lack of a better expression) to turn down the position as von Neumann's assistant.

This is beautiful. Really interesting reading. Thanks.