Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and at
Stanford University.
Knuth is best known as the author of the multi-volume
The Art of Computer Programmingidered an expert at writing compilers [i], Knuth started to write a b ...
ucation and academic work
Born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received his bachelor's degree and master's degree in
mathematics in 1960 at the
Case Institute of Technology . In 1963, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the
California Institute of Technology, where he became a professor and began work on
The Art of Computer Programmingidered an expert at writing compilers [i], Knuth started to write a b ...
, originally planned as a seven-volume series.
Quotations
A mathematical formula should never be owned by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.
Source: Chapter 1 of the book Digital Typography, p. 8.
I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
Source: Chapter 33 of the book Digital Typography, p. 649.
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been sorted with the help of a computer.
End of index.
The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.
More Quotes >>
Encyclopedia
Donald Ervin Knuth is a renowned computer scientist and at
Stanford University.
Knuth is best known as the author of the multi-volume
The Art of Computer Programmingidered an expert at writing compilers [i], Knuth started to write a b ...
, one of the most highly respected references in the computer science field. He practically created the field of rigorous analysis of algorithms, and made many seminal contributions to several branches of theoretical computer science. He is also the creator of the
TeX typesetting system and of the
METAFONT font design system, and pioneered the concept of
literate programming.
Education and academic work
Born in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received his bachelor's degree and master's degree in
mathematics in 1960 at the
Case Institute of Technology . In 1963, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the
California Institute of Technology, where he became a professor and began work on
The Art of Computer Programmingidered an expert at writing compilers [i], Knuth started to write a b ...
, originally planned as a seven-volume series. In 1968, he published the first volume. That same year, he joined the faculty of
Stanford University.
In 1971, Knuth was the recipient of the first
ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He has received various other awards including the Turing Award, the
National Medal of Science, the John von Neumann Medal and the Kyoto Prize. After producing the third volume of his series in 1976, he expressed such frustration with the nascent state of the then newly developed electronic publishing tools that he took time out to work on typesetting and created the
TEX and
METAFONT tools.
In recognition of Knuth's contributions to the field of computer science, in 1990 he was awarded the singular academic title of
Professor of the Art of Computer Programming, which has since been revised to
Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming.
In 1992 he became an associate of the
French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and teaching at
Stanford University in order to finish
The Art of Computer Programmingidered an expert at writing compilers [i], Knuth started to write a b ...
. In 2003 he was elected as a Fellow of the
Royal Society.
As of 2004, the first three volumes of his series have been re-issued, and Knuth is currently working on volume four, excerpts of which are released periodically on his website. Meanwhile, Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at
Stanford University, which he calls Computer Musings. He is also a visiting professor at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory in the
United Kingdom.
In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth is also the author of
3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated , ISBN 0-89579-252-4, in which he attempts to examine the Bible by a process of stratified random sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf.
Knuth's humor
Knuth is a famous programmer known for his geek professional humor.
- He pays a finder's fee of $2.56 for any typos/mistakes discovered in his books, because "256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar". . According to an article in MIT's Technology Review, these reward checks are "among computerdom's most prized trophies".
- Version numbers of his TEX software approach the transcendental number p, that is versions increment in the style 3, 3.1, 3.14 and so on. Version numbers of Metafont approach the number e similarly.
- He once warned users of his software, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
- From the Preface of Concrete Mathematics: When DEK taught Concrete Mathematics at Stanford for the first time, he explained the somewhat strange title by saying that it was his attempt to teach a math course that was hard instead of soft. He announced that, contrary to the expectations of some of his colleagues, he was not going to teach the Theory of Aggregates, nor Stone's Embedding Theorem, nor even the Stone-Cech compactification.
- Knuth published his first "scientific" article in a school magazine in 1957 under the title "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures." In it, he defined the fundamental unit of length as the thickness of MAD magazine #26, and named the fundamental unit of force "whatmeworry". MAD magazine bought the article and published it in the June 1957 issue.
- Knuth's first "mathematical" article was a short paper submitted to a "science talent search" contest for high-school seniors in 1955, and published in 1960, in which he discussed number systems where the radix was negative. He further generalized this to number systems where the radix was a complex number. In particular, he defined the quater-imaginary number system, which uses the imaginary number 2i as the base, having the unusual feature that every complex number can be represented with the digits 0, 1, 2, and 3, without a sign.
- Knuth's article about computational complexity of songs was reprinted twice in computer science journals.
Personal
Knuth's hobbies include music, specifically playing the organ. He has a pipe organ installed in his home. Knuth disclaims any particular talent in the instrument.
He does not use
e-mail, saying that he used it from about 1975 until January 1 1990, and that was enough for one lifetime. He finds it more efficient to respond to correspondence in "batch mode", such as one day every three months, to be sent by
postal mail.
He is married to Jill Knuth, who published a book on liturgy titled
Banner without Words, published by Resource Publications in 1986. They have two children.
He is a member of
Theta Chi fraternity.
Knuth uses the
Emacs text editor.
Awards
- First ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award - 1971
- Turing Award - 1974
- National Medal of Science - 1979
- John von Neumann Medal - 1995
- Kyoto Prize - 1996
He also has a Chinese name ??? , given in 1977 by Frances Yao just before his first visit to China.:
- Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms , 1997. Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-201-89683-4
- Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms , 1997. Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-201-89684-2
- Volume 3: Sorting and Searching , 1998. Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0-201-89685-0
- Volume 4: Combinatorial Algorithms, in preparation
- Volume 5: Syntactic Algorithms, in preparation, estimated to be ready in 2015
- Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, fascicles:
- Volume 1, Fascicle 1: MMIX — A RISC Computer for the New Millennium, 2005. ISBN 0-201-85392-2
- Volume 4, Fascicle 2: Generating All Tuples and Permutations, 2005. ISBN 0-201-85393-0
- Volume 4, Fascicle 3: Generating All Combinations and Partitions, 2005. ISBN 0-201-85394-9
- Volume 4, Fascicle 4: Generating All Trees -- History of Combinatorial Generation, 2006. ISBN 0-321-33570-8
- Donald E. Knuth, The TeXbook , 1984. ISBN 0-201-13448-9
- Donald E. Knuth, The METAFONTbook , 1986. ISBN 0-201-13444-6
- Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, Oren Patashnik, Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science, 2nd edition , 1994. ISBN 0-201-55802-5
- Selected papers series:
- Donald E. Knuth, Literate Programming , 1992. ISBN 0-937073-80-6
- Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Computer Science , 1996. ISBN 1-881526-91-7
- Donald E. Knuth, Digital Typography , 1999. ISBN 1-57586-010-4
- Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Analysis of Algorithms , 2000. ISBN 1-57586-212-3
- Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Computer Languages , 2003. ISBN 1-57586-381-2 , ISBN 1-57586-382-0
- Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Discrete Mathematics , 2003. ISBN 1-57586-249-2 , ISBN 1-57586-248-4
- Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Design of Algorithms
- Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Fun and Games
- Donald E. Knuth, 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated , 1990. ISBN 0-89579-252-4
- Donald E. Knuth, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About , 2001. ISBN 1-57586-326-X
References
Interviews, lectures, Q&A
- Doernberg, D. . 7 December 1993.
- . TUGboat 17 , 1996
- Woehr, J. Dr. Dobb's Journal, April 1996, p. 16-22.
- Addison-Wesley Innovations, 1996
- . Czech TUG, Charles University, Prague, 1996
- , Amsterdam, 13 March 1996.
- , Byte magazine, September 1996.
- Amazon.com, 1997.
- . Audio recording of a presetation at the monthly meeting of the Boston ACM 30 December1999
- . TUGboat, 22 , 2001.
- Wallace, Mark. Interview on salon.com, 1999.
- , also available as
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-
-
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- . Audio interview by David Kestenbaum on National Public Radio; or , 14 March 2005.
- .
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See also
External links
