Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by laichzeit0 2076 days ago
It was Schoppenhauer’s opinion too. See his essay “On Noise”.

A counter example is John von Neumann who preferred working in noisy environments.

2 comments

There's a quote from Schopenhauer's "The World as Will" in the article as well. Interesting about von Neumann, I would never have guessed.

For work I need either silence or non-distracting music, noise can really interrupt my flow. There's construction going with my neighbours now and it's impossible to get anything done unless I use my ANC headphones..

> at the IAS received complaints for regularly playing extremely loud German march music on the gramophone in his office, distracting those in neighboring offices, including Albert Einstein. In fact, von Neumann claimed to do some of his best work in noisy, chaotic environments such as in the living room of his house with the television blaring. Despite being a bad driver, he loved driving, often while reading books, leading to various arrests and accidents.

https://medium.com/cantors-paradise/the-unparalleled-genius-...

Interested by your second assertion. Do you have some quote or source?