Buy new:

$19.00

List Price: $30.00

Save: $11.00 (37%)

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns

FREE delivery Saturday, February 11 if you spend $25 on items shipped by Amazon

Or fastest delivery Friday, February 10

Select delivery location

In Stock.

[{"displayPrice":"$19.00","priceAmount":19.00,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"19","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"00","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"OuHxgSC9nEyBRdLK%2B6luGAbxdaxgADfZhl4JDzaB1IG%2F1vwpIferO7QKoLoXU2SveXScM8QEhgpfg%2F%2FSl0EaZ0AWR%2FlD6%2BMcWTMqHoI4e7UkU8Aif%2BUeyP%2Fs%2Fl0DMBL5UuAxY1u7nIPVnrRq7fhVOw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW"}]

$$19.00 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Secure transaction

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Details

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Return policy: Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Other Sellers on Amazon

Added

Not added

$19.00
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.

Sold by: BeyondBrooklyn

Added

Not added

$22.39
+ $3.99 shipping

Sold by: indoobestsellers

Added

Not added

$29.44
& FREE Shipping

Sold by: GrandEagleRetail

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 4 images

Follow the Author

Ananyo Bhattacharya

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann Hardcover – February 22, 2022

by Ananyo Bhattacharya (Author)

863 ratings

Editors' pick Best Books of 2022

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$19.00

$12.26

Paperback

"Please retry"

$20.00

—

Kindle
$9.99 Read with Our Free App
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Hardcover
$19.00

32 Used from $12.26 23 New from $19.00
Paperback
$20.00

1 New from $20.00

Great on Kindle

Great Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

View Kindle Edition

Enhance your purchase

An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made.

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann.

Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet―bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers―and how they might be overcome.

Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

12 illustrations

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 22, 2022
Dimensions

6.3 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
ISBN-10

1324003995
ISBN-13

978-1324003991
See all details

Frequently bought together

+
+

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Choose items to buy together.

by Ananyo Bhattacharya Hardcover
$19.00
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Monday, Feb 13
by Sean Carroll Hardcover
$19.99
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Saturday, Feb 11
by Siddhartha Mukherjee Hardcover
$16.29
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Get it as soon as Monday, Feb 13

Jimmy Soni
411
Paperback
55 offers from $4.51
Graham Farmelo
814
Paperback
53 offers from $8.88
Sean Carroll
289
Hardcover
in Physics of Gravity
57 offers from $15.39
Stephen Budiansky
376
Hardcover
57 offers from $10.86
Vaclav Smil
2,681
Hardcover
66 offers from $15.92
Norman Macrae
81
Hardcover
21 offers from $2.50

From the Publisher

Praise for The Man from the Future from Andrew Steele

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Bhattacharya's] crystal-clear prose…mak[es] for a tour de force of enjoyable science writing….[A] marvelously bracing biography of the ideas of John von Neumann, ideas that continue to grow and flourish with a life of their own."
― Stephen Budiansky, Wall Street Journal

"Vivid…[The Man From the Future is] devoted to exploring the ideas and technological inquiries [von Neumann] inspired."
― Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

"Lucid and rewarding….Bhattacharya composes a rich intellectual map of von Neumann’s pursuits, shading in their histories and evolutions, and tracing the routes and connections between them."
― Samanth Subramanian, The New Republic

"Examines the tremendous impact von Neumann had on various scientific disciplines in eight exceptional chapters."
― Dov Greenbaum and Mark Gerstein, Science

"Rather like the books of Stephen Hawking or Carlo Rovelli…this one is rewarding on different levels. Everyone can grasp the significance of the puzzles posed, and if readers want to follow the genius through the steps of his solutions then Bhattacharya is a clear and authoritative guide."
― The Economist

"Offers us a striking portrait of a man who contributed as much to the technological transformation of the world as any other scientist of the 20th century…[A]lways engaging and generally illuminating."
― David Nirenberg, The Nation

"Non-Euclidean geometry, set theory, the prisoner’s dilemma, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, self-replicating machines, game theory and nonlocality are among the astonishing range of topics that science journalist Ananyo Bhattacharya covers as he takes us on a whistle-stop tour through Von Neumann’s restless mind…[A] splendid new biography."
― Manjit Kumar, Guardian

"Bhattacharya both begins and concludes this impressive biography of John von Neumann by celebrating his contribution to the 'march of ideas.'"
― Francis P. Sempa, New York Journal of Books

"Bhattacharya tells the story tremendously well, situating von Neumann’s work―in fields from quantum mechanics to game theory to cellular automata―as comfortably as I’ve ever seen it done. He’s also good at deadpan humor."
― David Bodanis, Financial Times

"Bhattacharya is a first-class science writer with an impeccable pedigree and he does the best job I have seen of explaining the significance of von Neumann's work across many different fields… A fine tribute to von Neumann's genius and his contributions to science."
― John Gribbin, Literary Review

"[An] agile, intelligent, intellectually enraptured account of Von Neumann’s life."
― Simon Ings, Sunday Telegraph

"Any future intelligence capable of sending a representative back in time to help invent itself will be intelligent enough to conceal this from us. Ananyo Bhattacharya’s The Man from the Future is therefore unable to confirm this suggestion, but much else about John von Neumann’s presence in the twentieth century is revealed along the way."
― George Dyson, author of Turing's Cathedral

"Despite his central contributions to the theory of computation, economics, logic, complexity, and quantum physics, somehow John von Neumann never became a household name to rival Einstein and Feynman. Ananyo Bhattacharya’s biography deserves to change that. Consistently clear and careful without sacrificing elegance or accessibility, it does full justice to this legendary figure of twentieth-century science."
― Philip Ball, author of Beyond Weird

"An engaging and fascinating book that blends science and history. I loved it."
― Paul Davies, author of The Demon in the Machine

"This is a sparkling book, with an intoxicating mix of pen-portraits and grand historical narrative. Above all, it fizzes with a dizzying mix of deliciously vital ideas. The Man from the Future is a staggering achievement."
― Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up

"More than just a biography, The Man from the Future elucidates the breath-taking scientific progress in the mid-20th century, skillfully woven together in the story of one man, John von Neumann."
― Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math

"A gripping tale of the most significant mathematical, scientific and geopolitical events of the early 20th century. Bhattacharya’s storytelling seamlessly weaves together the science, the vibrant social and historical context, and the private idiosyncrasies of John von Neumann and the fascinating geniuses around him, without mythologizing."
― Andrew Steele, author of Ageless

"Sharp, expansive….A salient portrait of one of the most electrifying and productive scientists of the past century."
― Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Ananyo Bhattacharya, who holds a PhD in biophysics from Imperial College London, has worked as a science correspondent at the Economist, an editor at Nature, and a medical researcher at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in San Diego, California. He lives in London.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (February 22, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1324003995
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324003991
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #79,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #53 in Mathematics History
- #170 in Scientist Biographies
- #326 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)

Customer Reviews:
863 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Ananyo Bhattacharya

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Ananyo Bhattacharya is a science writer who has worked at the Economist and Nature. Before journalism, he was a medical researcher at the Burnham Institute in San Diego, California. He holds a degree in physics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in protein crystallography from Imperial College London.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

863 global ratings

5 star		59%
4 star		29%
3 star		7%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Der Boandlkramer

Great! But technically flawed.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2022

Verified Purchase

This is a very good biography of John von Neumann, who was the most influential scientist of the 20th Century--and arguably, of all time.

His contributions include the idea and implementation of a digital computer that stores programs in the same memory as the data. He invented game theory, along with Oskar Morgenstern. Game theory is now a central subject in microeconomics. Several Nobel Laureates in Economics have been awarded their prize for work in game theory.
He employed game theory to devise the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.
We're still here, and free from almost all external threats, thanks to Von Neumann, Pope John Paul II, Lech Walensa, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and many, many others. The West prevailed and won the "Cold War without firing a shot," as Margaret Thatcher famously said of Ronald Reagan. It's impossible to understand how unimaginable this outcome was, unless you were aware of geopolitical affairs well before the fall of the Berlin Wall--which none of us ever expected to see. Until a miracle occurred!

Von Neumann was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb. He was the leading mind working on the Manhattan Project, along with Enrico Fermi and Richard Feynman. He was also one of the two men most responsible for the hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb, along with Edward Teller.

He conceived of a device that could, given sufficient resources, duplicate itself--and therefore, reproduce itself and infinitum! This was a staggering achievement--and he did it long before Watson and Crick elucidated the workings of DNA and microbiology!

He did important early work on the foundations of mathematics. In one short paper of about a dozen pages or so, he made short work of what had required three volumes of quaint nonsense known as "Principia Mathematica," by Russell and Whitehead! 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂

His most important contributions to pure mathematics are in his papers on "rings of operators," coauthored by F.J. Murray. These objects are now called "Von Neumann Algebras." (I believe that this terminology is attributable to the great French mathematician and founding member of Bourbaki, Jean Dieudonne.)

It is here that the author's mathematical limitations are most apparent. He is absolutely out of his depth on this subject. His discussion of the work of Von Neumann, Goedel, and Turing on mathematical logic aren't any better.

On the other hand, he does a fine job of explaining Von Neumann's work on game theory and general equilibrium in macroeconomics.

I lack the competence to comment on his discussions of the atomic and hydrogen bombs. I will say, however, that they made my eyes glaze over.

All in all, this is an important book. It is far and away the best biography of John von Neumann, who did probably more than anyone in the past century to create the world of today.

He was the greatest mathematician of the first half of the twentieth Century.

His work was worthy of two Nobel Prizes (physics and economics), a Fields Medal, an Abel Prize and the Alan Turing Award. (Some of these didn't exist during his lifetime.)

Among Twentieth Century mathematicians, he was unsurpassed, until Alexander Grothendieck appeared on the scene!

Grothendieck's life story is unparalleled in the history of thought. It begs for an epic movie to tell it!

Are you listening, Ron Howard?

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

A. Menon

Nice overview of the life and scientific vision of John von Neumann

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

John von Neumann was a gifted scientist and mathematician of exceptional talent. His ideas and achievements continue to reverberate in the modern world and this biography looks at the man and his research and the relevance of the research in modern terms. It is entertaining and informative and is worth reading for those interested in science and engineering.

The book starts with von Neumann's family background. He lived in an erudite environment and his family was elevated through his father's merits to noble status. The intellectual vibrancy of the time is introduced as is the early academic system von Neumann learnt under. His fellow students in those years included Eugene Wigner and as such those formative years were certain to have influenced his personal progress. The author brings up early ideas that von Neumann worked on and discusses his early work on set theory and his solution to self-referential sets, bringing his brilliance into the narrative immediately. The author moves on to von Neumann's axiomatization of quantum mechanics and his distilling of the structure for both physicists and mathematicians. Within this framework he also showed that the theory cannot have hidden variables, though eventually that claim was disputed by others including Bell. But the author highlights how flexible von Neumann's mind is to enter a subject only to write a definitive work on it.

That same brilliance is then used to describe the growth of modern computing and Von Neumann's contribution. In particular how the von Neumann architecture was introduced and its simplicity articulated is the next subject. There was certainly controversy surrounding the originality of von Neumann's ideas as he did not come to the entire design in a vacuum, but despite competing claims it is clear the von Neumann was able to see the potential of new ideas and their use in technology and distill them into a framework that the world could leverage. The author discusses his overlap with Turing at the IAS and how the two must have discussed computation and machines though there is little record.

The author then moves on to von Neumann's role in developing game theory. Such a subject was at best in the partial domain of economics but with Morgenstern (though primarily von Neumann) the theory of games was described and solved in various settings and the ideas of how to solve 0-sum games was established. Furthermore the proof techniques for existence and uniqueness ended up being the same tools used by Nash later for larger sets of games with less rigid rules. Ultimately von Neumann created a whole new field of math and economics that ended up guiding strategic thinking at Rand and eventually much more policy driven applications. The book ends with some more out there ideas of self replicating machines, which von Neumann hypothesized about to colonize other planets. Such ideas sound like modern 3-d printing highlighting again the implicit visionary conceptualization that occurred within his mind.

The biography of von Neumann is both readable and informative and gives the reader a basic understanding of the fields that von Neumann influenced deeply. Remarkably this included a wide breadth of subjects from quantum mechanics to economics to physics. One gets a sense of the man but more his science and interests. Definitely a worthwhile read though at times you feel like you havent learnt enough about his life nor about the details of the work and so one must look further for a more complete picture of the man and his science.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

DJ

Biography of ideas more than the man

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 7, 2022

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed the book and certainly got a better feel for both von Neumann's life and contributions. The author attempts something difficult, a biography of a man who spent most of his time thinking and working. Thus, traditional biographical details, like anecdotes and interactions with others are present but thin. Instead, the book treats each subject area where von Neumann made a major contribution by offering both the context of the work and the downstream effects of it. Much of the book is about other people in those fields and the details of the problems von Neumann solved or explored.

As with all scientific explanation, it is difficult to find the right level of detail. This book may be challenging for the casual lay reader. As an MIT grad, I found the subject areas familiar and learned a few things, so it was fun, but if you have little STEM background it's possible you'll get hopelessly lost. And if you are an expert in any of the particular fields that von Neumann helped to create, you will be frustrated by the lack of rigor.

The best audience would be high school or college students with scientific aptitude who are looking for inspiration.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Smartest man ever?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 19, 2023

Verified Purchase

I never heard of John vonNeumann until a friend recommended this book. While I'm not brainy in math or physics, von Neumann was good at nearly every thing. He could memorize entire books, which stunned me. If you're familiar with Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, and other famous scientists who shared atomic ideas (think Los Alamos/Manhatten Project), you'll have fun reading this book.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Mr. Adrian Mcmenamin

More than a biography

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 14, 2021

Verified Purchase

I usually give biographies a wide berth, but I am glad I made and exception here - as while this book certainly does tell you about von Neumann's life and character, it's clear its true aim is to demonstrate the breadth of his influence on what was his future and is our present.
As a result we get a lot more than a discussion of just his life but a series of enormously interesting vignettes on a wide cast, including his second wife, Klari, who has a good claim to be the world's first professional computer programmer, to John Nash via John Conway. Personally I found the parts on Stephen Wolfram of particular interest as they have given me an incentive to return to my copy of "A New Kind of Science" with a bit more grasp of what it's all about.
When I was a lot younger I used to see von Neumann as a sort of (slightly less evil) twin of Edward Teller, but this book helps give you a much wider perspective on why von Neumann adopted the positions he id (and shows that he didn't stab Oppenheimer in the back). Thankfully von Neumann's view that the US should launch a pre-emptive first strike on the Soviet Union was not heeded and it is possible to read all this now without the same dread as in the 80s (though as the book makes clear that doesn't mean nuclear annellation has disappeared as a threat).
I strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in a wide variety of mathematical and scientific fields. It would be a good present for any putative or recovering undergraduate.

8 people found this helpful

JohnT

A well done biography on one of the most important figures of the 20th Century - no just in science!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a well written biography of John von Neumann, the mathematician, scientist and engineer whose breadth and importance has been surpassed by few people, if any, in history (Leonardo da Vinci might be a fair match).

Von Neumann made major contributions to quantum mechanics, the development of early computers, the theory of games, and thereby much of modern economics, the atom bomb project (for better or for worse), cellular automata, genetic engineering, and the development of artificial intelligence. And probably much else besides, since it seems likely some of his work in secret for the US government remains outside the public domain.

I have been aware of von Neumann’s influence in computing since the 1970s. The vast majority of digital electronic computers ever built (even today in the 2020s) follow something called the von Neumann architecture, which he originated in the 1940s. He therefore, 60 years after his death, continues to influence the design of every smart phone on the plant.

What I had no idea about was the breadth and quality of his contribution to other fields. To pick just one example the coining of the term “zero sum” is attributed to von Neumann.

Furthermore John von Neumann was clearly a bon vivant, which contributes to a lively biography.
Although the book reads likely a panegyric at times, the author does make a good job of supporting with his material with quotes and links to well-known figures in the respective fields. He also provides good brief introductions to the fields von Neumann worked in, allowing a wider public to get some understanding of von Neumann’s many and diverse contributions.

The book does have one or two technically suspect sections. For example (as noted by another Amazon reviewer) I don’t think Bhattacharya’s summary of what of Goedel’s Incompleteness Theorem proves is quite right.

But on the whole a very good book: buy it!

5 people found this helpful

Abiola O. Lapite

A book of ideas about a man who loved them.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 25, 2021

Verified Purchase

As befitting a man who took an unusual pleasure in thinking, this book is in essence an overview of some of the main intellectual contributions made by John von Neumann. This allows the reader to get a decent understanding of why the contributions were so novel and so highly regarded, without doing too much damage to the topics addressed by oversimplifying or reaching for misleading analogies. While I am no expert on all the fields broached in the book (I doubt anyone alive could be), I can vouch for the clarity and general correctness of the treatment of things in those areas with which I happen to be most at home, namely game theory and the nature of computation - the spot-on explanations here are accompanied by relevant references to authoritative sources and original research papers, and I expect the same is true everywhere else in the work. To summarise, this book is a joy to read, as informative as it is interesting.

5 people found this helpful

S. Curry

A brilliant book about a brilliant man

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

“The Man from the Future” is staggeringly good. Skilfully navigating Johnny von Neumann’s contributions to logic, maths, quantum mechanics, the atomic bomb, computing and automata, Bhattacharya gives us an account that is at once magisterial and exhilarating. The material may be quite knotty at times – few of us have the intellectual equipment to grasp the manifold problems that von Neumann wrestled with – but the author does a fantastic job of translating their significance and paints a portrait that is as honest as it is compelling. Amazing to think that such a mind once walked among us.

4 people found this helpful

Mally

My high hopes were exceeded

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 30, 2022

Verified Purchase

After a lifetime of reading, I consider this book to be among the very best I have ever read. I have read biographies of John Von Neumann before, but none has been anywhere near as wide ranging or with as much depth. This really is a tour de force and I take my hat off to the remarkable, talented author that John Von Neumann deserved. My eternal thanks.

3 people found this helpful

See all reviews

Buy new: $19.00

Other Sellers on Amazon

Follow the Author

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann Hardcover – February 22, 2022

Enhance your purchase

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Ananyo Bhattacharya

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy new:

$19.00