Another source of stimulation came from his interest in the theory of games. This was initially perhaps an independent curiosity, but in my opinion, a general theory of contests, fights for survival, and evolution will furnish in the near future a whole class of new mathematical problems and new patterns of thought concerning the schemata of the development of biological processes through what is now called evolutionary and "survival of the fittest" competition. In that area one of his major undertakings was the elaboration and creation of new models of probabilistic theory of games, in particular the study of the rules of coalitions. He developed these ideas with Oskar Morgenstern, a Princeton economist, in a monumental book entitled Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.
In the space of fifteen years since von Neumann's death the new facts discovered have become more perplexing, the whole structure is even more amazing, more incredible than it seemed at the time. It will go on increasing as our understanding of anatomy and physiology improves and will lead to new fields of mathematical research.
This process of increasing complexity in science is going on with no sign as yet of slowing down. Whether it will continue indefinitely or regress is a big question. It is a part of the problem of infinity versus the finiteness of the world.
In the last months of his life, Johnny was hospitalized at Walter Reed Hospital. He occupied a very large suite reserved for high government officials. In the fall of 1956 we were living in Cambridge again, and I was a visiting professor at MIT on another leave from Los Alamos. I managed to travel to Washington and visit him a few times. On one of these visits once again we had a discussion about age. He wondered how much more original and creative work he could still do if he lived. I tried to encourage him by telling him that he still could do at least half as much again.
Curiously, three years earlier while visiting Fermi in his hospital in Chicago, our conversation had also turned to the same topic; Fermi had said calmly that he considered he had already done most of his work. What a difference in outlook, or at least in the way these two great men expressed or suppressed their feelings.
On the same visit I went by mistake to the opposite corner of the hospital but on the same floor, and walked into an antechamber where two military men were sitting. They looked at me in surprise and questioningly. I said I was there to visit a friend and their look turned incredulous. When I added, "Dr. von Neumann," they smiled and directed me to the proper rooms. I had entered the Presidential Suite where President Eisenhower at that moment was hospitalized after his heart attack. I told this to Johnny when I regained his room. He enjoyed this. It amused him to be in a location symmetrically opposite to that of the President of the United States.
Some months before, Admiral Strauss had a conversation with me about what Johnny's life could be should he recover sufficiently to leave the hospital but not sufficiently to rejoin the Commission. The idea was to cheer him up with new surroundings and perhaps provide him with a perspective on things other than governmental work. Strauss, though not believing that a full recovery would come to pass, was instrumental in obtaining for him an offer of a special professorship at UCLA. This prospect diverted and cheered Johnny somewhat.
He never complained about pain, but the change in his attitude, his utterances, his relations with Klari, in fact his whole mood at the end of his life were heartbreaking. At one point he became a strict Catholic. A Benedictine monk visited and talked to him. Later he asked for a Jesuit. It was obvious that there was a great gap between what he would discuss verbally and logically with others, and what his inner thoughts and worries about himself were. It was visible on his face. Johnny used to be completely agnostic even though he sometimes expressed his feelings of wonder and mystery. Once in my presence when Klari chided him for his great self-confidence and pride in his intellectual achievements, he replied that on the contrary he was full of admiration for the wonders of nature and the evolution of the brain, compared to which all we do is puny and insignificant.
By then he was very, very ill. I would sit with him and try to distract him. There was still some scientific curiosity in him; his memory still seemed to work sporadically, and on occasion almost uncannily well. I will never forget the scene a few days before he died. I was reading to him in Greek from his worn copy of Thucydides a story he liked especially about the Athenians' attack on Melos, and also the speech of Pericles. He remembered enough to correct an occasional mistake or mispronunciation on my part.
Johnny died in Walter Reed hospital, February 8, 1957. He was buried in Princeton in a brief Catholic service with a short eulogy by Admiral Strauss. After the funeral there was a small gathering at his house. Several mathematicians were there, among them his old friend James Alexander, himself recovered from an illness not unlike the one I had had in Los Angeles. Also present were Atle Selberg, the number theorist, and Lewis Del Sasso, an engineer who had worked at building the MANIAC, and Mrs. Gorman, his long-time secretary at the Institute. After his death, Françoise went to Washington to spend a few days with Klari, taking Claire along. The presence of a child she was fond of helped momentarily to take Klari's mind off the long grueling months that preceded Johnny's death.
Von Neumann was remarkably universal. I have known wonderful mathematicians who were severely limited in their curiosity about other sciences but he was not.
Von Neumann's reputation and fame as a mathematician and as a scientist have grown steadily since his death. More than his direct influence on mathematical research, the breadth of his interests and of his scientific undertakings, his personality and his fantastic brain are becoming almost legendary. True, in his lifetime he had already achieved an enormous reputation, and all the honors the mathematical world can give. But he had his detractors. He was not entirely what one might call a mathematicians' mathematician. Purists objected to his interests outside of pure mathematics when, very early, he leaned towards applications of mathematics or when he wrote, as a young man, about problems of quantum theory.
As for myself, I was never greatly impressed by his work on Hilbert space or on continuous geometry. This is a question of taste, and when I was more of a purist myself I made good-natured fun of certain of his involvements in applications. I told him once, "When it comes to the applications of mathematics to dentistry, maybe you'll stop."
But there was nothing small about his interests, and his exquisite sense of humor prevented him from going off on tangents from the main edifice of mathematics. He was unique in this respect. Unique, too, were his overall intelligence, breadth of interest, and absolute feeling for the difference between the momentary technical work and the great lines of the life of the mathematical tree itself and its role in human thought.
Now Banach, Fermi, von Neumann were dead — the three great men whose intellects had impressed me the most. These were sad times indeed.
Part IV: The Past Fifteen Years
Chapter 13. Government Science