? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Think of The Maniac as the next step after Benjamin Labatut’s bestselling book, When We Cease to Understand the World . In 2020, Labatut considered the terrifying side of science — quantum mechanics, specifically — in a nonfiction novel that touched, among other things, on some of the scientific advancements that made the world wars the devastating events they were. In his latest book, the author zeroes in on John von Neumann: Born in Hungary in 1903, von Neumann was a mathematician, computer scientist, and physicist — just to name a few of his vocations. With nearly unparalleled intelligence, his contributions had an immense impact on many scientific fields including applied mathematics and quantum theory. Along with Turing and Shannon, von Neumann was one of the conceptual forerunners of the stored-program digital computer and a leader in the field of game theory. In this book, which is also part-fiction-part-biography, we understand the revolutionary power of von Neumann’s work as we begin to grapple with the intricacies of artificial intelligence: A realm that is “completely indifferent to mankind’s deepest needs.”

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