The Duties of John von Neumann’s Assistant in the 1930s (2020) | Hacker News Reader

The Duties of John von Neumann’s Assistant in the 1930s (2020)

cantorsparadise.com

103 pointsjorgenveisdal60 comments

The fact that von Neumann, a polyglot fluent in English, kept writing in German while at Princeton and left translation to his assistants, makes me wonder how much productivity is lost to Europe not having a lingua franca native to all citizens. Personally English isn't my native language. I write English with greater fluency than my native language at this point, but reaching this level took thousands of hours that could have been spent solving problems and building things.

Thankfully one language (English, but whatever language it is might not be that relevant) is becoming 'de facto' the language for sciences, and kids are starting to learn it from an earlier age.

It's still a long way to go, especially for undeveloped countries. However, probably any children born within the next decade will be able to read and speak at least advanced English before reaching 18.

> Thankfully one language (English, but whatever language it is might not be that relevant) is becoming 'de facto' the language for sciences, and kids are starting to learn it from an earlier age.

Soapbox UX issue: That's why we language sticklers should tolerate and even welcome the "corruption" of English — that is to say, the crowd-sourced, grass-roots simplification of the tongue. Non-native speakers should feel that it's easy to achieve fluency in English without wondering whether they'll be looked down upon for getting it not quite right.

(That will also help English stay competitive with, say, Mandarin.)

Here's just one example: It should be perfectly fine to say "less errors," vice the supposedly-correct "fewer errors."

More examples?

The one I hate, but that seems to be taking over anyway: the use of "up" rather than "raise."

This is mostly a US colloquial usage but it goes back to the start of the 20th century.

There are some articles on "EU English" or "European English", my favourite example is ending any sentence with "..., no?" to make it a question

That specific usage makes any written sentence sound as though it is in a French accent, no?

Similarly, writing sentence without article makes sentence seem as though it is written in Russian accent.

As much as I appreciate that people are chill about mistakes, I'm not sure if I agree. To me, as an English language learner, the grammar is trivial to learn and it is an anchor that gives me at least some reassurance. One of my most useful habits has been to pick a style guide and stick to it; I wish I'd done it earlier. People often say there should be no rules, but has anyone considered that rules ensure different regions don't develop dialects incomprehensible to each other?

What makes English actually difficult to learn is its broad vocabulary of idioms. One needs to develop a sense for 'natural expressions' because often there are dozens of grammatical expressions, only one of which feels natural. This is something difficult to understand for a native speaker so let me give you an example. Which if any of these expressions are a natural way to get a teacher's attention? 'Can I have a question,' 'may I have a question,' 'can I ask a question,' 'can I ask you a question,' 'may I ask you a question,' or 'I have a question.' This is by far more difficult to learn than any rule of grammar.

As a non-native speaker of English, I really dislike this idea.

I indeed make this very error, but I prefer to rely on tools such as Grammarly to help me improve my abilities, than to other people to start accepting my mistakes as basically the natural mutation of the language.

Yes, a language mutates, and a simple language may be more welcome, but we don't need to force it. Let it happen naturally.

> Yes, a language mutates, and a simple language may be more welcome, but we don't need to force it. Let it happen naturally.

Isn’t that more or less what I said?

The way you said it, I imagine that you'd be willing to let a 'less errors' (instead of 'few errors') slip without trying to educate whoever made the error about this, if you were reviewing something (for example).

I tell my law students that:

(A) [as stated above];

(B) the cold reality is that they need to learn the rules of "correct" English, even those rules are often arbitrary. That's because in professional situations, others — including but not limited to hiring partners, clients, and referral sources — are likely to think less of them if their usage doesn't conform to those rules; and

(C) When grading their work, I will deduct points when they don't use "correct" English, because part of my job is to help them learn to do so.

I kind of agree, but when I hear/read “on accident” it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.

> when I hear/read “on accident” it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Agreed!!! I mean, there have to be limits, right? :)

The point of the finer, pedantic questions of English fluency is to be a marker of social class.

It is, in fact, perfectly understandable to say “less errors” rather than “fewer errors”, except insofar as doing so marks one as “uneducated” and déclassé compared to someone who uses the “correct” usage. Of course, this particular class marker is less meaningful now that it’s too widely known—it’s more likely a marker of someone being a member of an anxious and pretentious tier of the middle class by now.

The pointless difficulty is, in fact, the point. For similar reasons, the word “ain’t” and the double negative are perfectly well-attested usages; they just exist primarily within specific dialects that are not socially prestigious. (Of course, blatant and well-known markers of class status are seen as stuffy and pretentious, which is why politicians tend to code-switch into more “folksy” dialects.

As for competing with Mandarin, I’m sure the Chinese upper classes are just as capable of telling each other apart from the rabble.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with some Scottish bloke. He said he doesn't understand why his Polish girlfriend keeps learning English when she speaks it perfectly well. 'That is simple,' I replied, 'suppose you're learning French. Is your learning goal to sound like a Scotsman who's learnt French, or is it to sound like someone from Paris?' From his point of view it was an apparent pursuit of social prestige while his girlfriend has likely been following the most obvious learning goal. It is like mastering any other medium.

You would be surprised. At a previous job, we would receive guests from all around the world, and particularly from African, Asian, South American, and 2nd-tier European countries. The Africans and SEAs were by far the most consistently, fluently conversant. The (comparatively wealthier) Eastern Europeans and East Asians seemed to understand written English most proficiently, but seemed to loathe speaking it; the former broke the "English only" classroom rule most often.

Edit: I'm not surprised by the downvote, simply bemused.

I didn't downvote you but it is probably because you are making a straw man argument, countering something GP didn't imply.

There is probably some truth to some cultures being more shy when it comes to speaking. I'd wager it is an effect of people being judgmental of others' accents.

I'm not sure what else, "It's still a long way to go, especially for undeveloped countries," is meant to imply, but feel free to posit alternatives.

I see. That could be interpreted either way, but let's give henvic the benefit of the doubt and assume they were talking within the context of the above comment, i.e. Europe.

edit: Not that it makes the argument sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index

I don't think that suffices, because I have never heard European countries described as "undeveloped" (perhaps "underdeveloped"), if that. The benefit of the doubt usually orbits a common sentiment, and in this case there is a conspicuous incongruity.

As for the edit: "The test takers were self-selected." The tests also seem to be online-only, and by that measure, likely textual.

I'll say that there is an explanation for the phenomenon I've described: if one has the privilege to conduct business and socialize in one's native language, speaking proficiency in a lingua franca could likely be lower.

I had the impression that the assistant's proposed task was to translate von Neumann's older papers, the ones he wrote in German before moving to the US. In either case, he was fluent in German from childhood, but his English was not all that great at the time he moved (it got better with time). His native language was of course Hungarian.

The incredible success of a small group of Hungarians from one region and time has sometimes been attributed to the unique social situation in Hungary then. Part of which was linguistic. In the case of the Hungarian Jews, they were usually Hungarian speaking at home, and often from families of German or Yiddish-speaking background further back. Usually educated in German. Some were educated in Hebrew at religious school. In the case of Hebrew, Hungarian and German, that's three radically different languages, about as unalike as three languages can be. Maybe that has an effect on the mind?

Though as I recall, von Neumann's family was non-observing. So he was fluent in Ancient Greek by the age of 5, instead. So I'm not that strongly wedded to the hypothesis. Maybe they really were from Mars, as Leo Szilard once quipped.

I'm not sure whether I constructed my argument properly, but it was about the average person being less productive due to working in a language that isn't second nature to them. German probably was second nature to von Neumann. In other words, by native I didn't necessarily mean the one and only mother tongue.

Sorry. No. Your argument was well-constructed. I have acquired two other working languages and it took about 15 years of regular work. I appreciate your point. Still, speaking more than one language seems to have benefits for general intelligence. So perhaps it is both a blessing and a curse.

> I write English with greater fluency than my native language at this point, but reaching this level took thousands of hours that could have been spent solving problems and building things.

There was the idea of Esperanto as everyone's second language, so that everyone could talk to everyone with 1/10 of the effort most people now spend learning English, but... it worked about as well as trying to convince people to leave Facebook while everyone else is there.

This post seems to be missing the punchline that Von Neumann is alleged to later have hired 4 assistants for those tasks.

Source?

"Szeged in 1934" [0]

"I heard subsequently that the position that had been offered to me was divided into four pieces"

[0] https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/2...

The OP says:

> This essay is based on the article “Szeged in 1934”, which was compiled by Reuben Hersh from two manuscripts of Lorch’s for a proposed book on mathematics in Hungary.

Based on it, yes -- to the extent that you should just read the original. I'm not sure if the OP article really counts as plagiarism, but it's not worth reading when the original is right here.

Oh the horses of Szegad!

I gave up reading the Cantor's Attic articles that keep getting linked from HN. They are all rehashes of well known stuff from other sources. Yes though, the Lorch article was excellent (I read it some time ago).

I’ve never understood what’s the point of giving a lecture nobody except you can grasp. IMHO, It could be justified only by the novelty of topic discussed, otherwise it’s just a waste of everybody’s time.

In some cases it might be due to the curse of knowledge. You assume because you understand it that the subject must be pretty simple for others.

Perhaps the requirement of giving a lecture helped him prepare knowledge in a communicable way. For me, when I'm asked to give a panel talk or prepare a presentation, I'm forced suddenly to better communicate that I otherwise might need to, and thus knowledge is stored in a better way.

Not commenting about this specific case, but I know some people just like to feed their ego, by lecturing so "high" no one can understand them, so they reinforce their believe, that they themself are clearly the most intelligent person around.

However, in von Neumann’s case it could legitimately be argued that he was the most intelligent person around.

It's hard to prove that someone does this on purpose. Some lecturers indeed don't bother to go down to earth. But it's not necessary because of their ego. If a "high" presentation has a meaning and a reason, then it's justifiable.

Though some people indeed complicate their lectures for no reason.

I am not necessarily say people does this with clear purpose. Even though the specific professor I have in mind, probably did. But unconsciously, I'd say people do this a lot in general.

I sometimes do it, when I am angry at a person, not on par with me intellectual. Then out of bad old habit I speak a very high language to underline my competence and lower the other person for not understanding it. I witnessed that behavior quite some times with other persons, too and thats probably why I aquired it myself at some point. But I try to get rid of it, as it is not at all helping with communication. And I think the high lecturing is in the same category. To boost oneself.

But agreed, most too high lectures are probably just happening out of lazyness or unawareness, to get down on the level of the students.

The interesting thing about this dynamic is that you'll often have people who can formulate cutting arguments on the spot, used against someone who is slower but who tends to think more deeply, given enough time. So, with some thought, those arguments are easy for the second person to eventually break down, and while the first can usually rebut quickly (often with more high-sounding nonsense), they're (if they have any self awareness at all) left with the nagging truth of the first conflict's takedown.

And now no one is happy.

Generally it's better to just be smart than to try to prove or weaponize it.

Hard to prove in words, because proving intentions, arrogance and other interpersonal subtleties is always hard.

But relatively easy to notice if you take time to watch lectures themselves. Ego driven complexity is different then inability to explain complexity or it is complicated complexity.

Also, seems kind of rude as a teacher to erase equations off the board "before students could copy them". Would it hurt so much to ask, has every written this equation?

Understanding is not binary. They mean that the bright student walked away understanding X% (maybe 70%) of the major logical steps Von Neumann made.

Those students could then go home, open a book or the transcript of his lectures and spend 5-10 hours figuring out all the details, and exploring auxiliary stuff not covered in the lecture.

Lecture time is fixed, outside-lecture time is 10X lecture time.

There are a few famous instances where mathematicians ran seminars for close to a decade and developed extensive theories on that way. Von Neumann appears to have been one, Grothendieck is a famous other example. The lectures are basically then meant to be taken by people that dedicate almost all their time to understand them.

In other words they are lecturing as they are developing the new theory. Clearly such things probably happen much less often now a days, because the overall research landscape is such, that this is not really rewarded. On a smaller scale research seminars in mathematics still are like that though, the results discussed there are often only circulated among the participants, which then make them available to the public piece by piece. Peter Scholzes breakthroughs were widely discussed in Bonn long before they were accessible to the overall public and even then most of what was taught in the initial seminars in Bonn wasn't circulated.

The problem with educators in general is that they tend to design lectures as a transition from one set of information to another set of information.

In contrast, what students actually need is to transition from one state of mind to another state of mind.

Archived link: https://archive.is/UOENL

I hate medium and the gateway to content. “Install the app or login with social profile to view on the web”. No thank you.

For some reason, viewing it on incognito mode simply gives the text without the gateway.

Just delete their cookies to work around this. But I agree I don't like medium either the site is very slow and the extra steps necessary to access the content are very annoying.

Just turn off javascript.

It's astonishing how much of the web suddenly becomes less broken when you do that...

This entry seems puzzling that our printers were behind the Germans in that era:

As American printers were not yet accustomed with the practice of typesetting mathematical symbols, they needed to be taught.

What's puzzling, really? Prior to WWII, the USA were hardly a "beacon of knowledge". They were still a young country and most scientific advancements originated from Europe.

The article mentions Baltimore in particular, which may have had something to do with it (Johns Hopkins notwithstanding).

[noun]-er as in [noun]-person, like butler, computer, farmer, etc. The device in front of you is _electronic_ computer as called in the era it had been written in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com