[nabla9]

Many of the other candidates of that time agreed that Von Neumann was the smartest among them. He had a mind like a racecar.

Quoting Eugene Wigner:

> "I have known a great many intelligent people in my life. I knew Planck, von Laue and Heisenberg. Paul Dirac was my brother in law; Leo Szilard and Edward Teller have been among my closest friends; and Albert Einstein was a good friend, too. But none of them had a mind as quick and acute as Jansci [John] von Neumann. I have often remarked this in the presence of those men and no one ever disputed.

> But Einstein's understanding was deeper even than von Neumann's. His mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann's. And that is a very remarkable statement. Einstein took an extraordinary pleasure in invention. Two of his greatest inventions are the Special and General Theories of Relativity; and for all of Jansci's brilliance, he never produced anything as original."

[defertoreptar]

Here's the usual anecdote that goes along with von Neumann threads:

> The following problem can be solved the easy way or the hard way:

> "Two trains 200 miles apart are moving toward each other; each one is going at a speed of 50 miles per hour. A fly starting on the front of one of the trains flies back and forth between them at a rate of 75 miles per hour. It does this until the trains collide and crush the fly to death. What is the total distance the fly has flown?"

> In a strict mathematical sense the fly actually hits each train an infinite number of times before it gets crushed, and one could solve the problem the hard way with pencil and paper by summing an infinite series of distances. This is the way that most trained mathematicians will solve the problem. Conversely a mathematical novice will most likely solve the problem the easy way - since the trains are 200 miles apart and each train is going 50 miles an hour, it takes 2 hours for the trains to collide, therefore the fly was flying for two hours, at a rate of 75 miles per hour, and so the fly must have flown 150 miles. Easy.

> When this problem was posed to John von Neumann, he immediately replied, "150 miles."

> "Ah, I see you've heard this one before, Professor von Neumann. Nearly everyone tries to sum the infinite series." "What do you mean?" asked von Neumann. "That's how I did it!"

[jalexa]

...however when Von Neumann was working in a group with Walter Pitts, it was Pitts who was considered the genius of the group.

http://m.nautil.us/issue/21/information/the-man-who-tried-to...

[pmoriarty]

George Pólya[1], author of the math classic How to Solve It[2], wrote "Von Neumann is the only student I was ever intimidated by. He was so quick. There was a seminar for advanced students in Zurich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it was not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn’t say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann."

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P%C3%B3lya

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Solve_It

[nabla9]

Von Neumann was 15 when he met famous mathematician Gabor Szego who would then teach him analysis. Szego started to cry after they talked a little math during their first meet.