
John Von Neumann was perhaps the first computer age polymath. He seemed to be capable of getting involved in just about any subject. Not content with inventing game theory, cellular automata and putting down the foundations of quantum mechanics, he invented the computer architecture we use most often today.
If you know even a little about computer design you will have come across the term "Von Neumann architecture" probably in the context of what a big problem it is and how we need something better to make computers work faster.