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He was building his computer. He was not just a person who told other guys to build a computer. He was always about details, "How are you going to do this? Which kind of gadget are you going to use for memory?" He was extraordinarily precise in these matters. At the same time he had written a book on the foundation of quantum mechanics, which I read with terror but great interest. He had written this book about games theory, which looked then extremely promising but of course was just the beginning. He had done this work about logic. I mean, in a way Von Neumann was the person who had performed the miracle. He was for me the model above all models.

— Benoît Mandelbrot on John von Neumann

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "He was building his computer. He was not just a person who told other guys to build a computer. He was always about details, "How are you going to do this? Which kind of gadget are you going to use for memory?" He was extraordinarily precise in these matters. At the same time he had written a book on the foundation of quantum mechanics, which I read with terror but great interest. He had written this book about games theory, which looked then extremely promising but of course was just the beginning. He had done this work about logic. I mean, in a way Von Neumann was the person who had performed the miracle. He was for me the model above all models." in the context of "Benoît Mandelbrot, in Post-doctoral studies: Weiner and Von Neumann." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "John von Neumann" (Quotes about von Neumann: Sorted alphabetically by author or source) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Benoît Mandelbrot

About Benoît Mandelbrot

Benoît B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Poland-born French-American mathematician known as the "father of fractal geometry".