Before and after the war, he consulted for many organizations including the Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
He developed the mathematical models behind the explosive lenses used in the implosion-type nuclear weapon. His analysis of the structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the structure of DNA.ĭuring World War II, von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project on nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb. He was a pioneer in building the mathematical framework of quantum physics, in the development of functional analysis, and in game theory, introducing or codifying concepts including cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer.
He had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, integrating pure and applied sciences and making major contributions to many fields, including mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and statistics. John von Neumann ( / v ɒ n ˈ n ɔɪ m ən/ von NOY-mən Hungarian: Neumann János Lajos December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath.
