Alma,
You're a winner. I do not exaggerate when I say that in my opinion, your essay ranks near Wigner's own, in its breadth of knowledge and depth of insight.
A couple of confessions I have to make: I have followed and enjoyed your intelligent commentary in other forums, so I knew I would get to your essay eventually. And the other confession is that I checked on the internet to verify how young you are; I would never have believed it from your mature postings. I do hope your circumstances permit you to go on to higher academic pursuits -- it's obvious that you have the "right stuff."
I didn't know the story of von Neumann and the engine. I do recall another one, though, of his lightning-fast calculating skill -- mathematicians like to try and fool each other with problems that seem complicated, but can be made simple with "tricks". One of them concerns two trains approaching each other, with a fly flying back and forth between the engines -- how far does the fly travel before getting squashed when the trains collide? One can get a quick answer by knowing the short cut of averaging -- otherwise, calculating the series by brute force is long and tedious. It is said that when the problem was put to von Neumann, he gave the solution almost immediately. Asked if he knew the short cut, he looked puzzled and replied, "What could be easier than summing the infinite series?" The Wolfram site has an article on the two-train problem.
Highest marks, and good luck!
Tom
