I heard that John von Neumann had mentioned that the longest
lecture should last a microcentury.

I used my trusty HP 41C calculator:

60  enter (minutes in 1 hour)
24  x     (hours in 1 day)
365 x     (days in 1 year)
100 x     (years in 1 century)
1000000   (divide into 1 million parts)
Result: 52.56  (a little over 52 minutes)

As someone who has made oral presentations all over the world,
I agree with John von Neumann's insight.  I sincerely hope that,
during the recent SigIMAGE session at HP World 2003 in Atlanta,
I managed to stay within John von Neumann's guidelines (Birket's
speech after SigIMAGE doesn't count towards John von Neumann's
calculations :-)

Naturally, I am sure John von Neumann managed to compute all of
these steps in a microsecond, using only one or two of his powerful
neurons (firing at a small percentage of their potential).

In awe regarding one of the most incisive minds of the Twentieth
Century,

  _______________
 |               |
 |               |
 |            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
 |          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
 |        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego
 |      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs
 |    d          |  Adager Corporation
 |  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
 |               |
 |_______________|

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