Project Details

John von Neumann (Johnny) was one of the great minds of the past century whose work has continued to shape research and entire disciplines. He studied chemical engineering at ETH Zurich from 1923 to 1926. See The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann for an article about his life.

Celebrating John von Neumann (1903-1957) who matriculated at ETH Zurich 100 years ago, we organize annual John von Neumann Lectures in the core fields of his contributions. The next event will take place in May 2025. Please watch this space for updates, and find information on past events below.

(von Neumann in the background on the left)

2025: The sixth John von Neumann Lecture is on cryptology and quantum physics, disciplines that Johnny shaped actively in the 1930s and 1940s.

Tuesday, 27 May, 2025
4–5:15 p.m. in HG F 30 Audi Max

Artur Ekert (Oxford and CQT Singapore) on "Privacy for the paranoid ones - the ultimate limits of secrecy"  with an introduction by ETH President Joël Mesot 

The event is organized and supported jointly by various professors from multiple departments at ETH Zurich and UZH, by the NCCR Automation and by the Zurich Center for Market Design.

2024: The fifth John von Neumann Lecture is on algorithms and game theory, a discipline that Johnny founded in the 1930s and 1940s.

Éva Tardos (Cornell) on "Stability and Learning in Strategic Games" with an introduction by ETH Rector Günther Dissertori

The event is organized and supported jointly by various professors from multiple departments at ETH Zurich and UZH, by the NCCR Automation and by the Zurich Center for Market Design.

A recording of the talk can be found here.

2023: 100 years after John von Neumann matriculated at ETH Zurich, we hold the John von Neumann Symposium in the core field of his contributions featuring the following speakers:

• Serge Haroche from ENS Paris, awardee of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2012 (shared with David Wineland), speaks about quantum mechanics and quantum information.
• Yurii Nesterov from UC Louvain, awardee of the John von Neumann Theory Prize in 2009 (shared with and Yinyu Ye), speaks about higher-order methods of finding equilibrium.
• Larry Samuelson from the Cowles Foundation at Yale University speaks about economics, utility and game theory.
• Benny Sudakov, ETH Zurich’s own, who came to Zurich via the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University, speaks about some of von Neumann’s mathematical contributions.

The event is organized and supported jointly by various professors from multiple departments at ETH Zurich and UZH, by the NCCR Automation, by the Zurich Center for Market Design, by the ETH President Joël Mesot and by the ETH Rector Günther Dissertori who will introduce the event.

2022: The third John von Neumann Lecture is on game theory, a discipline that Johnny founded in the 1930s and 1940s.

Philipp Strack (Yale) on "Misspecified Beliefs" with Marina v.N. Whitman (University of Michigan) and Marek Pycia (UZH)

A recording of the talk can be requested here.

2021: The second John von Neumann Lecture is on theoretical computer science, a discipline that started with his work on computation, computer architecture, and game theory.

Constantinos Daskalakis (MIT) on "From von Neumann to Machine Learning: Equilibrium Computation and the Foundations of Deep Learning" with Marina v.N. Whitman (University of Michigan), Niao He (ETH Zurich) and Sven Seuken (UZH)

A recording of the talk can be found here: switchtube

2020: The inaugural John von Neumann Lecture is on game theory and economics, a discipline he first unilaterally and then jointly with Oskar Morgenstern pioneered during the 1930s and 1940s resulting in publication of the path-breaking book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944.

Hervé Moulin (University of Glasgow) on "Fair Division: What's New?" with Hans Gersbach (ETH Zurich), Bary Pradelski (CNRS), Marek Pycia (UZH), and ETH Rector Sarah Springman

A recording of the event can be found here.

This series of events is organized by Heinrich Nax in cooperation with the UZH Zurich Center for Market Design and the NCCR Automation.