Overweening Generalist: John von Neumann: Hungarian...Martian?:
I have always loved the variations on those stories, never believing any of them.
During the time of the Manhattan Project, there was an ongoing joke that
the Hungarians (Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and a few others) were so
smart they must be "Martians" and they were speaking Hungarian as a
cover. The smartest Hungarian of them all - maybe the smartest
mathematical-scientific-freakish mind of the 20th century - was, for my
money, John von Neumann.
Even if you don't read the long Wikipedia link there, just have a
glance at the right hand column, under "known for." See what I mean?.
(http://overweeninggeneralist.blogspot.be/2011/11/john-von-neumann-hungarianmartian.html?spref=bl)
