Was John von Neumann a "terrible" person when he proposed a preventive war with the Soviets in the context of Cold War geopolitics? Was he an altruist when he stood by Mandelbrot and defended Oppenheimer (the communist "father" of the atomic bomb) or was he an unyielding rationalist when he quietly sowed solutions for the challenges humanity would face in the future? Difficult questions without easy answers for this multifaceted personality, for this inconceivable superintellect of the 20th century. • Our smartphones and the architecture of computers that mimic our minds, • the relentless strategy of victory in game theory and the dynamics of evolutionary biology (from self-replicating spacecraft to xenobots), • the formidable thermonuclear bomb and the anxiety for our planet, • the unparalleled mathematical intelligence, the quirky philanthropy, and the gift of enjoying thinking... ... all bear the indelible mark of the resourceful "Johnny." The mathematical contributions of this Hungarian scientist with "alien" intelligence defined the intellectual currents of our century from politics to economics and from technology to psychology. His ideas were inexhaustible. He generously shared them with Hilbert, Turing, Gödel, Heisenberg, Feynman, Minsky, and all the leading scientists of his time, as he moved from field to field, providing solutions everywhere. Wherever he went, "Johnny" sparked revolutions. The unsurpassably "proper" Princeton professor drove the fastest cars, threw the wildest parties, married beautiful women, and enjoyed money. But above all, he loved to think. He became unpopular when he offered his expertise to the Rand Corporation and the cold logic of nuclear deterrence, but he himself was tormented by dark thoughts about the future of our world and the death of innocents. He was the mathematician who paved the way for the advent of the first digital electronic computer. He ignited the birth of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology and defined the development of neuroscience. He was celebrated! He had the reputation of the smartest mind in the world – even surpassing Einstein! After his death, his image dimmed; many portrayed him as the "coldest" of the Cold War figures. He was almost forgotten, but year by year we experience the strangely great predictive power of his mind. A biography of the tumultuous, shocking life of the cosmopolitan visionary John von Neumann and the world he created for us. A "biography of ideas" that electrifies.