Why I want to meet Donald Ervin Knuth
He’s a genius and all that, but really the reason I want to meet him is he seems very friendly and interesting. And once I saw him wearing a Unicode t-shirt. My kinda guy.
Donald Ervin Knuth (placeholder)
Donald Ervin Knuth (born January 10, 1938) is a renowned computer scientist and professor emeritus at Stanford University. is best known as the author of the multi-volume The Art of Computer Programming, 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 the creator of the TeX typesetting system and of the METAFONT font design system, and pioneered the concept of literate programming.
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A story about Donald Ervin Knuth
I got a response from Donald Knuth (and Ron Graham) after I pointed out an error in Concrete Mathematics.
Knuth’s response came on a photocopy of my original letter and he has really small handwriting. I didn’t get a cheque for $2.56 because they already knew about the error. Of course I wouldn’t have cashed the cheque, I doubt if anyone would, I might have had it framed though.
Still, a big thrill to get a letter from one of the world’s top computer scientists. I was a starting maths teacher at the time.
