Otto Robert Frisch, in What Little I Remember (1979), p. 173
“

I never ceased to be fascinated by electronic computers, and I feel that I have been privileged in having been initiated so marvellously by the Master himself. His mathematical achievements are far too subtle and technical for me to understand or to describe, but I can attest to the strength of his brain because I once saw him, for a bet, drink sixteen martinis in a row and then be still on his feet and quite lucid, though somewhat pessimistic in his utterances.

— Otto Robert Frisch

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I never ceased to be fascinated by electronic computers, and I feel that I have been privileged in having been initiated so marvellously by the Master himself. His mathematical achievements are far too subtle and technical for me to understand or to describe, but I can attest to the strength of his brain because I once saw him, for a bet, drink sixteen martinis in a row and then be still on his feet and quite lucid, though somewhat pessimistic in his utterances." in the context of "Otto Robert Frisch, in What Little I Remember (1979), p. 173" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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
John von Neumann

About John von Neumann

John von Neumann (28 December 1903 – 8 February 1957) was a Hungarian-American-Jewish mathematician, physicist, inventor, computer scientist, and polymath. He made major contributions to a number of fields, including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, geometry, set theory, topology, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics and quantum statistical mechanics), economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics.