salviohexia

Completely agree about the Richard Rhodes book being much better, and infinitely more interesting, than the 'lone genius trope that seems to feature heavily in the new von Neumann biog. Von Neumann may have been a 'genius', but he was a deeply flawed (and in many ways unsympathetic) character by all accounts.

I'm currently working on a book/photobook that’s being published in spring next year about his second wife, Klara Dán von Neumann. Klara’s a very interesting figure, but has remained very much in the shadow of her more famous husband. Despite having had little formal education, she taught herself how to programme, and wrote code for Monte Carlo simulations of various hydrogen bomb models on the ENIAC as a consultant for Los Alamos in the late 1940s and early ‘50s.

The book is also about other women programmers and the relationship between early computers, simulation tools like Monte Carlo, and the impact of hydrogen bomb testing in the Marshal Islands. For anyone interested in Klara’s story or the other inter-connected subjects, the book is currently available for pre-order via a Kickstarter campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/632375787/klara-and-the...