That reminds me a quote from the movie Snatch: "when something sounds too good to be true, it's too good to be true".
There's one mistake in this article though, the author, Eric Hoel claims that the "child Johny 8 digits division story" has been misremembered by Harry Henderson in his book "Mathematics: Powerful Patterns In Nature and Society" since this book cites a biography from Norman Macrae ("John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius...") which actually contains a slightly different story: Adult Johny multiplying 8 figures numbers (much less impressive)
But his is likely not true since the exact same story (child Johny dividing 8 digits) had already been reported - despite as a likely rumor - by Paul Halmos , in "Legends of John von Neumann", before Henderson 's book. This is in the footnotes from Hoel 's article so he kinda contradicts himself actually. This cannot possibly be a coincidence.
That does not change the fact that this story is likely a rumor.
There's one mistake in this article though, the author, Eric Hoel claims that the "child Johny 8 digits division story" has been misremembered by Harry Henderson in his book "Mathematics: Powerful Patterns In Nature and Society" since this book cites a biography from Norman Macrae ("John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius...") which actually contains a slightly different story: Adult Johny multiplying 8 figures numbers (much less impressive)
But his is likely not true since the exact same story (child Johny dividing 8 digits) had already been reported - despite as a likely rumor - by Paul Halmos , in "Legends of John von Neumann", before Henderson 's book. This is in the footnotes from Hoel 's article so he kinda contradicts himself actually. This cannot possibly be a coincidence.
That does not change the fact that this story is likely a rumor.