WEBVTT - Who was John von Neumann? 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.720 stuff works dot com. Hey there, welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.279 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer and 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.880 I love all things tech. And in a recent episode 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.400 I mentioned a guy named John von Neuman, and that 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:25.840 said I should probably do an episode about him, and 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.760 several of you wrote in and urged that I should 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.440 do this sooner rather than later. So today we're going 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.400 to learn more about von Neuman and his numerous contributions 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.879 to science and technology. This is the first part of 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.960 a two part episode. His achievements were remarkable, perhaps made 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.560 even more astonishing by the fact that he only lived 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.960 to his mid fifties, and yet he was an incredibly 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:52.360 prolific thinker. But he also had his flaws, and I'll 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:54.400 talk about those as well, because I think it would 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.160 be a disservice to just gloss over them. So while 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:03.760 he was a genuine whenly intelligent, brilliant man, he had 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.559 some some flaws to his character as well. So John 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.679 von Neumann was born Neuman Ya nash Law Josh margin 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:18.440 Tie in Budapest, Hungary, in December. And I know, I know, 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:20.760 I butchered the pronunciation of that, but I'm doing the 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:25.080 best I can. He was born into a nonpracticing Jewish family, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:30.640 so uh, ethnic Jewish family, but not a practicing Jewish family. Now, 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.319 according to the biography, as I read, the household liberally 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.360 mixed in Jewish and Christian traditions together. His father was 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.920 a successful banker. His mother came from a prosperous family, 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.760 so in those biographies they also mentioned that he came 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:49.280 from a wealthy background. He was the oldest of three boys. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.480 His younger brothers grew up to be a doctor and 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.320 a lawyer, respectively, and the family would employ governesses to 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.360 look after the children and from them, Vaughn Neuman began 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.760 to learn French and German and English and other languages 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:07.240 as well. Even as a kid, he was obviously gifted. 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:09.920 He could talk with his father in Greek and tell 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.880 jokes in Greek. He could memorize an entire page out 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:15.760 of a phone book in just a few minutes and 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.840 answer questions about who had which number or what a 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.320 person's street address was. They would do this as like 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.760 party tricks. When he was six years old, John von 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.120 Neumann was an apt student in school, and he attended 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.200 the Lutheran High School starting in nineteen thirteen. This was 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.320 one of the best schools in Hungary. He earned the 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.720 award of being the best Mathematician of the fifth class 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.800 in nineteen eighteen and he won Best Hungarian Student in 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.079 Mathematics in nineteen twenty. Now, in between that time there 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.359 were some bumps in the road, but it wasn't due 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.000 to his academics, was due to world politics. In nineteen 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.920 nineteen you had the end of World War One. Hungary 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.040 fell under the governance of a commune. This leader named 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:06.240 bellah Kun, and he and his Hungarian Soviet Republic moved 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.600 to nationalize a lot of private property in other words, 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.200 sees the property of wealthy individuals in order to redistribute 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.480 that to the rest of the population. Now, the Noumans 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.799 didn't really like the sound of that, and so they 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:26.520 fled temporarily to Austria. After about a month, they came 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.160 back to Budapest and the Soviet Republic didn't last very long. It, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.200 I mean it ultimately it fell. But in the wake 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.800 of its failure, that added more problems for this family. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.600 So namely, the failing government had many Jewish representatives in it. 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.320 It was a largely Jewish government, and so public opinion 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.400 towards Jewish people in general turned very, very negative. So 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:58.040 it didn't matter that John's family had been in opposition 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.320 to that government. The fact that they were Jewish meant 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:06.080 that they would receive a lot of the ill will 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.840 of the people. He would go on to study mathematics 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.640 in one university and chemistry at another at the same time. 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.680 Sort of all right, so here's the story behind that. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.280 His dad didn't want him to pursue a career that 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:25.520 wasn't going to accumulate wealth, and he felt that an 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.039 advanced degree in pure mathematics wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.760 a real money maker. So he and John sat down 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.800 and together they agreed upon the subject of chemistry. There 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.320 were a lot of rising stars in the world of 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.640 chemistry out of this part of Europe, and so John 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.000 von Neumann agreed he would study chemistry. So he enrolled 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.960 in the University of Berlin. However, at the same time 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.520 he also enrolled in the University of Budapest for mathematics. Now, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.720 Hungary's universities had really strict limitations on the number of 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:03.120 Jewish students would be allowed to attend at any one time. However, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.400 von Neuman's academic record was beyond impressive, so he was 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.440 able to get in. And then he did something pretty 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.440 darn baller. He would attend classes at the University of 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:19.280 Berlin learning about chemistry, and he would skip nearly all 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.360 of the lectures and classes at the University of Budapest 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.400 in mathematics. He would just come back to the University 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.880 of Budapest to take exams or whenever he was absolutely 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.640 required to be there, and he aced those exams even 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.560 though he wasn't going to the lectures. He graduated with 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:39.000 a pH d in mathematics from the University of Budapest 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.120 in ninety without really going to lectures there. He was 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.160 twenty three years old. He transferred out of the University 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.080 of Berlin as he was studying chemistry, and he would 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.840 ultimately receive a diploma in chemical engineering in ninety six 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.680 from a school in Zurich, Switzerland. I wish I could 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.400 tell you the name of that school, but I'm looking 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.560 at it and it would do such a terrible job 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.680 with this one. I don't even dare attempt to pronounce it. 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.240 So I'm just gonna leave it be now. When he 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.920 was twenty. When he was still in school, John von 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:18.880 Neuman published a definition for ordinal numbers, and an ordinal 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.320 number is a way to describe the position of an 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:26.480 object within a sequence of objects that are inside a set. So, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:31.400 for example, if you consider a set to be people 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.760 who are in line for pizza, and there are four 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.240 people ahead of me, I am the fifth person in 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.560 that line or set. So the ordinal number that is 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.839 my designation is five because I'm the fifth person in line. 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.440 Von Neuman's definition of ordinal numbers is the same one 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.240 that we use to this day now. Von Neuman's dissertation 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.240 for his PhD had the title The Axiomatic System of 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:02.480 set theory. Set theory concerns collections of objects, typically mathematical objects, 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:07.040 as opposed to you know, like hammers and Set theory 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:11.080 was established in the late nineteenth century by George Cantor 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.080 in an article titled on a property of the Collection 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.880 of all real algebraic numbers. Basically, this is the theory 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.360 that can be described like this. Sets are collections of 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.640 objects or elements. So in a real world example, the 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:30.680 classification of mammals includes all animals that are vertebrates, that 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.120 have for that typically give birth to live young, and 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.400 they produce milk for offspring. So a cat fits that definition. 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:44.360 A cat fits the set of mammals. All cats are mammals. However, 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.560 sets themselves can be objects that belong to larger sets. 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.840 So in this example, mammals is a set, but it's 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.680 also an object. It belongs to the larger set of 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.560 all animals. So a cat belongs to the set mammal 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.520 as well as to the set animals, and mammals are 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.280 a subset of animals. If you've seen a Venn diagram 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.680 in which you have two circles that overlap in some way, 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.520 you've seen a representation of one aspect of set theory. 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.320 So let's give an example of a Venn diagram. Let's 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.080 say we have two circles. One circle represents people who 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:23.640 love they might be giants, and the second circle represents 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.920 people who love Andrew w K. These circles each represent 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.640 different sets. The overlap, or the intersection of those two 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:37.359 sets is where you have people who fit both categories. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.200 They love they might be giants and they love Andrew 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.920 w K. We could even give this group a new name. 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.559 We could call it something else. Like weirdos like Jonathan 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.959 Strickland because I love both, they might be giants and 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.960 Andrew w K. But we could also talk about the 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.679 set difference of this Venn diagram. The set difference for 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.439 the people who love they might be giants would include 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:04.080 all the people who only love Andrew w K. And 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.480 the opposite would be true for the set difference for 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.280 the people who love Andrew w K. You also have 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.840 symmetric differences. The symmetric difference of these two sets would 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.200 include all the people who only loved one of the 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.480 two bands, but not both. There are many other ways 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.960 you can describe sets, but you get the general idea. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:26.559 As for axioms, those are statements that are self evidently true, 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.839 things that are true because of common sense. We can 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.000 declare them to be true. It's about as fundamental as 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:34.920 you can get. In fact, it is as fundamental as 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:36.959 you can get with truth. So one of those might 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:42.160 be parallel lines will never intersect. By definition, parallel lines 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.880 will never intersect. That is an axiom. It is a 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:49.760 fundamental truth. It's a common sense statement. It's not based 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:55.440 on earlier or or even more granular statements. So these 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.600 axioms can be used to deduce further conclusions. But doing 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:03.960 that hand be tricky. If you build deductions on axioms 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.080 and you find that two different deductions you have based 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.040 off the same axiom end up contradicting each other, then 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.640 you've got a problem on your hands. So let's say 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.440 you've got your axiom A. This is your fundamental statement, 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.840 the one that you've declared to be true. Then from A, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.920 you deduce that because A is true, statement B, which 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.320 is based on A, must also be true. And then 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:34.400 from statement B you deduce that statement P is also true. 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:36.839 Now let's get back to A. Let's say that we 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.680 start from A again, and now we're making a different 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.679 deduction and we deduce a new statement. We're calling this 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.760 statement D, and that one must be true. But now 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.960 from statement D we make a deduction, and from statement 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.199 D we deduce that statement P has to be false. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.480 So this is a problem. You have one line of 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.240 reasoning that states P has to be true because A 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.280 is true, B is true, P is true. Then you 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.120 have another one that says P has to be false 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.839 because A is true, D is true. That means P 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.840 must be false. This is a paradox or a contradictory statement, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.840 and it means we have to look over the entire system. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:16.880 We have to look at the axioms to make sure 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.319 that they are actually sound, and we have to look 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.600 at the process we've used to deduce the truth or 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:27.679 falsehood of the statements that followed from this axiom. This 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.400 falls into an area of logic that I absolutely loved 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.200 studying in college. Now, I'm no von Neumann, not by 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:36.400 a long shot, but I got a brag for just 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.760 a second. So when I was in college, I took 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.760 a course in symbolic logic, and I found that my 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.160 professor was teaching directly from the textbook. So I made 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.960 a tough decision. I decided to stop going to classes. 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.679 I only took the exams and I aced the course. Now, granted, 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.079 the version of logic I was studying was the most 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.480 basic version of symbolic logic. It was child's play for 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.760 someone like von Neuman. He would have breathed through the 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.280 class back when he was six years old. So I 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.840 can't brag too much, but it did give me a 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.920 little bit of insight into his mind, at least in 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.200 that aspect. I've got a lot more to say about 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.720 John von Neuman. But first, let's take a quick break 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:27.160 to thank our sponsor. Set theory would become one of 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.720 many areas that von Neuman would continue to study and 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.800 develop over the course of his life. There's a concept 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.440 in mathematics called the von Neuman universe. In fact, although 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.480 some scholars like Gregory H. Moore have gone on to 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.320 say that this attribution is somewhat misleading, but we'll leave 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.400 that for now, because would otherwise be diving into an 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.959 area of mathematics so far outside of my expertise and 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.520 understanding that I would just be reading from textbooks or 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.559 history books, and I don't think that makes very good podcasting. 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:03.559 In addition to mathematics and chemistry, the young von Neumann 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:08.120 was also fascinated by technology and aviation, and it began 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.560 to work in an area that would have a really 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:17.000 big effect on many different different industries, different careers moving forward. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.760 That would be game theory. Now, personally, I find the 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.040 term game theory to be a little misleading because it 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:29.559 undersells what it's all about. You could use game theory 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.720 to describe how people play a game like poker, but 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.319 it's actually way more than that. In psychology, you might 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.760 refer to it as the theory of social situations, and 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.080 it really comes down to how human beings interact with 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.640 one another in specific types of situations. And generally you 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.520 can break it down into two large branches, cooperative game 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:56.000 theory and non cooperative game theory, and the names kind 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:59.439 of are self explanatory. Cooperative game theory describes how people 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:03.160 will work together to achieve a common goal. How will 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.360 they leverage their strengths, how will they compensate for their weaknesses, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:12.319 how do they manage to go after this goal together. 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:17.360 Non Cooperative game theory, you could call it competitive game theory, 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.880 describes how intelligent people will interact with each other as 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:25.840 they each are working toward achieving their individual goals. Now, 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:30.040 those individual goals might be the same, so it may 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.840 be that everyone's trying to go after the same prize 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.400 and only one person can get it. Or it might 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.120 be that each person has a different individual goal, and 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.960 it may be that some of those individual goals are 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:46.120 at conflict with one another. For example, maybe my goal 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.280 is to get a certain trophy and someone else's goal 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.320 is to get a certain medal. But the problem is 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.840 that the when one person achieves one of those goals, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.400 the path to achieving the other one is cut off, 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.360 so that would be another example. Now, John von Neumann 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:07.160 was not the first mathematician to suggest using mathematics to 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.320 describe game theory, or to study game theory, or to 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:16.200 come up with various strategies in game theory. Numerous thinkers 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:21.120 had worked on various applications, some for specific games like chess, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.360 before von Neuman had ever come onto the scene. But 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.800 von Neuman's work was some of the first general purpose 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:34.080 game theory work not dedicated to a specific implementation. His 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.920 scholarship effectively established game theory as its own distinct field 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.920 of study. John von Neumann published his first paper on 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.680 game theory in nineteen twenty eight. It had the title 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.880 Theory of Parlor Games. He recognized that a game like 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.600 poker had a lot more going on than just probabilities. 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.720 So if poker just was reliant upon chance, then you 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.960 could memorize all the possible outcomes of a round of cards, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.280 and you would have a good chance of being able 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:11.680 to play your hand to the best of its effectiveness. Right, 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.080 you would know that the odds of someone having a 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.440 better hand would be higher or lower than um any 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.880 given hand that you have and that would help you 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.960 make a decision. However, that does not take into account 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.480 the human element of bluffing. So with bluffing, a person 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.440 can act as if his or her hand is stronger 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.840 than it really is, or maybe they are giving off 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.560 the implication that they aren't working with a very strong 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.040 hand and they're hoping that you will get out of 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.800 the game. There's a lot of psychology in their doubt 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.040 enters into the equation. So von Neyman started to work 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:51.720 on this idea and he saw how it could be 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.800 applicable to all sorts of stuff, not just games, but 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.080 stuff like economics, and he partnered with an Austrian economist 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.920 who was at print Sston University named Oscar Morgan Stern, 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.280 and together they would publish a book titled Theory of 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.280 Games and Economic Behavior. In the introduction of that book, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.720 they lay out the fact that economics is a really 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.359 complicated science. There are a lot of contributing factors to 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.080 economic outcomes, and not all of them are identified, let 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.800 alone understood. So out of the factors that we can 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:30.680 say yes, this definitely impacts economics, we don't necessarily understand how, 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.680 but we know it happens, and then there are others 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.760 that we may not have identified yet. So the authors 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.240 maintained that because of that, because of this uncertainty, this 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:44.159 lack of knowledge, this gap in our knowledge, it's pretty 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.960 much the case that anyone who claims to have a 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.119 universal theory of economics has got to be wrong because 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.040 we don't have that full understanding of all the factors 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.200 and how they interact with one another in any given situation, 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.000 how they're weighted in any given situation. So in a way, 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:04.920 this would mirror another big challenge von Neuman would encounter later, 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.960 which would involve predicting the weather. I'll talk a bit 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.600 about that in our next episode. Now, one of the 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:15.400 central concepts of von Neumann's game theory was called mini max. 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:20.119 Emil Borel had previously theorized about mini max, and this 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.919 is all about minimizing the possible loss in the event 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:29.040 of a worst case scenario. So, considering considering a scenario 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:34.240 where the absolute worst happens, the maximum bad happens, how 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.800 do you minimize the impact to you in that event? 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.080 And this could be applied to all sorts of situations. 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.639 How do you limit the setbacks you're going to suffer 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.480 should the worst happen. There's also a concept called maximn 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.000 This is sort of the opposite. How can you make 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:56.200 the absolute most gains with the minimum success you might 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:00.399 have in any given scenario. So these two on steps 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.320 together would become part of game theory, and game theory 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.040 wasn't the only scholarly work von Neumann was pursuing in 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.359 the nineteen twenties. At the same time, he was also 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.720 studying quantum mechanics, which would ultimately form the foundation of 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:19.720 his book, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. So I've 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.840 talked about quantum mechanics before, but what the heck doesn't 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.679 actually mean. Well, the simple answer is that it's a 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:32.040 branch of physics that's concerned with the very very very small. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:37.199 We're talking atomic and subatomic levels generally. So at that scale, 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.399 the physics that we observe in our day to day lives. 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.120 The behavior of larger stuff, you know, stuff like tractors 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.919 and puppy dogs and skyscrapers and people. The physics that 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.520 we encounter day to day that breaks down when you 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.199 get down to this atomic and subatomic level. So in 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.439 our day to day world, I cannot walk up to 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.840 a wall and then in an instant appear on the 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.800 other side of the wall. I would have to have 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.600 a door to walk through or a window decline through, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.199 or I'd have to burst kool aid or hulk like 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.920 through the barrier. There would have to be an opening, 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.000 or I would have to make one. Those are the 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.399 only two options if I want to get onto the 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:17.040 other side of a wall, or I guess I could 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.720 walk around it if if that's an option, but you 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.160 get what I mean. On the quantum level, however, this 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.480 is not the case. You can actually have a quantum 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.720 particle come up to a barrier and sometimes appear on 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:32.720 the other side of the barrier as if it had 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.240 just passed through, without even having to pass through. This 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.960 tendency can have consequences in our macro world. So take 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:44.800 electrons for example. So for convenience sake, we talk about 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.919 electrons inhabiting an orbit around a nucleus of an atom, 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.520 and we usually depict this in some way that makes 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.000 sense to us on a macro scale. And you might 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.520 have a very simple drawing where you've got the the 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.359 very uh icon drawing of an atom where you've got 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.080 the nucleus as a big dot in the center, and 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.639 they have a circle around the nucleus, and around in 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.040 that circle you have a dot that represents an electron. 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.080 So that's sort of saying, in this moment of time, 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.960 the electron is right here. But that's misleading. That's not 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:23.680 really what we can definitively say. Electrons have wave like properties. 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.040 They don't act just as particles. They also connect as 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.800 a wave, and waves don't just abruptly end when they 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:34.600 hit a barrier. They actually taper off. If the barrier 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:38.320 is thin enough, some of the wave will continue through 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.360 the barrier to the other side. Now, the wave represents 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.560 a probability function. Now essentially that tells us the chance 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.840 of the electron inhabiting any part along that wave at 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.920 any given time. So that means there is a probability, 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.199 albeit a small one, that the electron could exist on 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.600 the other side the barrier. Because it's it still exists 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.440 on the other side, it represents a probability, and as 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:08.720 long as there's a probability, it means that sooner or 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.960 later it'll happen. So that means that if you have 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.359 enough electrons near a barrier like this one, some of 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.200 those electrons will just from probability, appear on the other 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.440 side of the barrier as if it had passed through, 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.760 and we call it electron tunneling. Now there's no actual 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:29.040 tunnel created, there's no hole made in the barrier. It 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:33.840 just was a fact of probability. There was a small 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.399 probability that the electron could be on the other side, 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.280 and so sometimes that happens. This is one of the 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:46.320 big challenges that microprocessor manufacturers make when they miniaturize elements 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:51.040 on the chips because if the gates, the actual gates 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:55.400 that are controlling the pathway of electrons are thin enough, 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.680 then it's possible for the electron probability function to overlap 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:02.960 the barrier, and then you have electrons passing through these 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:06.000 gates as if they were open even when they're closed, 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.080 and that creates errors. So that's why this has real 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:14.240 world uh impact, even though we don't see this kind 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.480 of behavior in the macro world. Like I said, I 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:20.280 can't walk up to a wall and then magically appear 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.480 on the other side of it just because of probability. 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:27.000 There's zero probability that that will happen. Concepts like these 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:29.400 are hard to wrap our minds around because we occupy 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.639 a world in which quantum mechanics do not apply. This 0:23:32.720 --> 0:23:35.679 is also or if they do apply, they apply, it's 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.879 such a tiny, tiny amount that it's imperceptible to us. 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:42.320 So this is why I get grouchy when I see 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:45.320 people try to use these concepts from quantum mechanics to 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.920 describe or predict stuff in our real world macro environments, 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:51.800 because it really doesn't apply there, at least not on 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:56.440 a level that is at all, you know, noticeable. At 0:23:56.440 --> 0:24:01.960 this point, you're either dangerously close to using pseudoscience or 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:05.760 you've fully jumped into the pseudo science science boat. So 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:09.800 be where people who try to describe real world scenarios 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:15.760 in quantum mechanics um you know, methods or approaches. I've 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:17.560 got more to say about John von Neuman in just 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:20.480 a second, but first let's take another quick break to 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:30.600 thank our sponsor. Now, John von Neumann was working on 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:34.879 quantum mechanics at a really exciting time. Heisenberg had just 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:38.560 proposed his uncertainty principle. Now that's largely based off the 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:40.800 fact that matter can act as both a wave and 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:43.399 a particle, and that would mean there's a limit to 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:47.399