Recognized as a mathematical prodigy, he began to study advanced calculus under Gábor Szegő at the age of 15. On their first meeting, Szegő was so astounded with the boy's mathematical talent that he was brought to tears. Along with Teller and Stanislaw Ulam, von Neumann worked out key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb.

One night in 1946, Stanislaw Ulam, a young mathematics professor was overwhelmed by a violent headache. He was rushed to a hospital where the surgeon drilled a hole in his skull and found his brain in an acute state of inflammation. Ulam's wife and friends worried that he would suffer permanent brain damage. But that was far from the case. The mathematician went on to produce some of his best work after his recovery.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people, made of synthetic organic matter, called "robots." Unlike the modern usage of the term, these creatures are closer to the modern idea of cyborgs or even clones, as they can be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans, although that changes, and a hostile robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race.

Karel Čapek introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1920. The word robot comes from the word robota, meaning literally "serf labor", and, figuratively, "drudgery" or "hard work" in modern Czech (in Slovak, Russian, Polish, archaic Czech and other Slavic languages the cognate word means simply "work", comparable to German arbeit, with the same meaning.).