An electrifying biography of one of the most extraordinary scientists of the twentieth century and the world he made. The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Nuclear weapons and self-replicating spacecrafts. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable, yet largely overlooked, man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. A child prodigy, he mastered calculus by the age of eight, and in high school made lasting contributions to mathematics. In Germany, where he helped lay the foundations of quantum mechanics, and later at Princeton, von Neumann’s colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet—bar none. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and the design of the atom bomb; he helped formulate the bedrock of Cold War geopolitics and modern economic theory; he created the first ever programmable digital computer; he prophesized the potential of nanotechnology; and, from his deathbed, he expounded on the limits of brains and computers—and how they might be overcome. Taking us on an astonishing journey, Ananyo Bhattacharya explores how a combination of genius and unique historical circumstance allowed a single man to sweep through a stunningly diverse array of fields, sparking revolutions wherever he went. The Man from the Future is an insightful and thrilling intellectual biography of the visionary thinker who shaped our century.

Understand the real power of AI and and its ability to shape the future for the better. AI For Social Good: Using Artificial Intelligence to Save the World bridges the gap between the current state of reality and the incredible potential of AI to change the world. From humanitarian and environmental concerns to advances in art and science, every area of life stands poised to make a quantum leap into the future. The problem? Too few of us really understand how AI works and how to integrate it into our policies and projects. In this book, Rahul Dodhia, Deputy Director of Microsoft’s AI for Good Research Lab, offers a nontechnical exploration of artificial intelligence tools—how they’re built, what they can and can’t do, and the raw material that teaches them what they “know.” Readers will also find an inventory of common challenges they might face when integrating AI into their work. You'll also read more on: The potential for AI to solve longstanding issues and improve lives Learn how you can tap into the power of AI, regardless of the size of your organization Gain an understanding of how AI works and how to communicate with AI scientists to create new solutions Understand the real risks of implementing AI and how to avoid potential pitfalls Real-life examples and stories that demonstrate how teams of AI specialists, project managers, and subject matter experts can achieve remarkable products. Written for anyone who is curious about AI, and especially useful for policymakers, project managers, and leaders who work alongside AI, AI For Social Good provides discussions of how AI scientists create artificially intelligent systems, and how AI can be used ethically (or unethically) to transform society. You’ll also find a discussion of how governments can become more flexible, helping regulations keep up with the fast pace of change in technology.

An Economist Best Book of the Year "Making Money and Keeping It" – The Wall Street Journal Over the past century, if the wealthiest families had spent a reasonable fraction of their wealth, paid taxes, invested in the stock market, and passed their wealth down to the next generation, there would be tens of thousands of billionaire heirs to generations-old fortunes today. The puzzle of The Missing Billionaires is why you cannot find one such billionaire on any current rich list. There are a number of explanations, but this book is focused on one mistake which is of profound importance to all investors: poor risk decisions, both in investing and spending. Many of these families didn’t choose bad investments– they sized them incorrectly– and allowed their spending decisions to amplify this mistake. The Missing Billionaires book offers a simple yet powerful framework for making important lifetime financial decisions in a systematic and rational way. It's for readers with a baseline level of financial literacy, but doesn’t require a PhD. It fills the gap between personal finance books and the academic literature, bringing the valuable insights of academic finance to non-specialists. Part One builds the theory of optimal investment sizing from first principles, starting with betting on biased coins. Part Two covers lifetime financial decision-making, with emphasis on the integration of investment, saving and spending decisions. Part Three covers practical implementation details, including how to calibrate your personal level of risk-aversion, and how to estimate the expected return and risk on a broad spectrum of investments. The book is packed with case studies and anecdotes, including one about Victor’s investment with LTCM as a partner, and a bonus chapter on Liar’s Poker. The authors draw extensively on their own experiences as principals of Elm Wealth, a multi-billion-dollar wealth management practice, and prior to that on their years as arbitrage traders– Victor at Salomon Brothers and LTCM, and James at Nationsbank/CRT and Citadel. Whether you are young and building wealth, an entrepreneur invested heavily in your own business, or at a stage where your primary focus is investing and spending, The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions is your must-have resource for thoughtful financial decision-making.

If our goal is to broaden and deepen students’ awareness and understanding of mathematics, we advance the idea that engaging students with what we metaphorically call the personality of math. That is, we think that students who engage with the math’s (1) human champions, (2) with its history and philosophy, and (3) with the nature of its problems and inferential challenges, are more likely to have a positive attitude toward math that will encourage greater learning.

How can one European capital be responsible for most of the West's intellectual and cultural achievements in the twentieth century? Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens--every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna. The city of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt was the melting pot at the heart of a vast metropolitan empire. But with the Second World War and the rise of fascism, the dazzling coteries of thinkers who squabbled, debated, and called Vienna home dispersed across the world, where their ideas continued to have profound impact. Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of this extraordinary story. Tracing Vienna's rich intellectual history from psychoanalysis to Reaganomics, Cockett encompasses everything from the communist rebels of Red Vienna to the neoliberal economists of the Austrian School. This is the panoramic account of how one city made the modern world--and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

Economists in the Cold War is an account of the economic drivers and outcomes of the Cold War, told through the stories of seven international economists, who were all closely involved in theory and policy in the period 1945-73. For them, the Cold War was a battle of economic ideas, a fight between central planning and market allocation, exploring economic thinking derived from the battle between Marxist and Capitalist ideologies, a fundamental difference but with many intricacies. The book recounts how economic theory advanced, how new economic tools were developed, and how policies were tested. Each chapter is based on the involvement of one of the selected economists. It was a challenging but dangerous time in economics: a time of economic recovery post-war, with industrial rebuilding, economic growth, and rising incomes. But it was also a time of ideological warfare, nuclear rivalry, military expansion, and personal conflict. The narrative is approximately chronological, ranging from the Potsdam Conference in Germany to the Pinochet Coup in Chile. The selected economists include an American, a Pole, a Hungarian, a German, a British, a Japanese, and an Argentinian, all very different economists, but with interconnections among them. Each chapter also features a dissenting economist who held a contrasting view, and recounts the subsequent economic arguments that played out.