John von Neumann

He designed the architecture that every computer on Earth still runs on. He invented game theory. He helped build the atomic bomb. His mind worked so fast that colleagues said watching him think was like watching a human-shaped calculator with intuition. On his deathbed at Walter Reed, riddled with bone cancer at 53, he was terrified — not of pain, but of oblivion. The man who calculated everything tried to calculate his way out of death itself. He couldn't. A Grithosian remembers that no amount of genius buys a single extra day. Use the ones you have.