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Donald Knuth's 2024 Christmas Lecture: Strong and Weak Components [video]
- illegalmemory 2y agoThank you for sharing! It might be a bit off-topic, but videos like this remind me why I fell in love with computers in the first place. Thank you!!
- gjvc 2y agoThe whole "let me put TAOCP on pause while I create TeX just to create it properly" story always fills me with awe.
- monobot12 2y agoMy takeaway is it's much easier to embark on huge side projects as a tenured professor.
- gjvc 2y agoyou completely missed the point
- WillAdams 2y agoAgreed. I'm also incredibly grateful --- I was gifted a NeXT Cube by my brother-in-law when I was in college studying graphic design, and I was incredibly put out by the paucity of nice typography features in Quark XPress and Aldus Pagemaker when I came across TeXview.app and remembered checking out the book _TeX and Metafont_ from the local college library when I was a senior in high school --- built that into a career and a series of presentations at TUG conferences where I got to meet him.
- varjag 2y agoThe TAoCP itself is a side project from his original goal of writing a book on compilers.
- blipvert 2y agoGotta shave some Yaks
- fuzztester 2y agoDid he complete the compilers book, or even start it? I know he has worked on TAoCP for a huge amount of time, and on TEX too.
- ronbrz 2y agoFrom what I understand, TAoCP is building up to that compilers book! When initially tasked with writing about compilers, he realized all the background necessary for building them and planned out these books as an overview of computational techniques that would be helpful to use. See the "future plans" section of his website: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html has volumes 6 and 7 as being on compilers.
- fuzztester 2y agodanke, freund
- lukaslalinsky 2y agoI was in San Francisco a few years back and I was amazed to learn that Donald Knuth not only still lives, but it still giving these once a year lectures in Stanford. Going there, finding the right building in the university, and then seeing this man speak about things I could only barely follow gave me such a memorable evening. What a legend Donald Knuth is.
- sheetjs 2y agoKnuth is also still reviewing TAOCP-related email and issuing reward checks. A teammate received a reward check for 1 hex dollar last month after finding an error in Seminumerical Algorithms. Along with the check, there was a printout of the original email with hand-written annotations.
- WillAdams 2y agoNote that it's no longer an actual check --- instead one gets a certificate of deposit at The Bank of San Seriffe: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html (I got a physical check for $2.88 for a typo and a point of improvement in _Digital Typography_ --- need to find another so I can get an account....) If that was not included in your geography lessons see: https://legacy.geog.ucsb.edu/the-semicolonial-island-nation-of-san-serriffe/ https://legacy.geog.ucsb.edu/the-semicolonial-island-nation-...
- shagie 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check And one of my favorite quotes on the subject: > Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text. Stupidity: Cashing that $2.56 check you got. > — Seen in a Slashdot signature, quoted by Tess O'Connor ( https://www.stgray.com/quotes/programmingquotes.html https://www.stgray.com/quotes/programmingquotes.html )
- WillAdams 2y agoSome of the checks added up to quite a bit more than that (if there's ever another error check for TeX it will be for $327.68), and one notable at a TeX User's Group conference stated that he had cashed a check for $40.96 and was grateful to DEK for it, since it put food on his table when he was a poor starving grad student.
- anigbrowl 2y agoKnuth is as amazing as ever. Very surprising and disappointing that nobody at Stanford could get it together on the sound recording end to give this the clarity is deserves. It sounds like it was recorded on a dictaphone in someone's pocket. I'm not talking about Knuth's old-guy voice; listen to how bad it is when he stops to take an audience question.
- actionfromafar 2y agoMaybe everyone around are so used to seeing him they sometimes forget he's a National Treasure. :-)
- xeonmc 2y agoSo what you’re saying is, we need Nicholas Cage to abduct him to preserve the appreciation?
- petalmind 2y agoFunny that Nicolas Cage comes up in this context. Here is a trivia snippet from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23468450/trivia/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23468450/trivia/: > During an interview, Osgood Perkins recalled a story from production where he learned Nicolas Cage has a particular skill that he says no other actor possesses: the ability to recognize how high or low he is able to speak without messing up the audio. According to Perkins: "The sound guy came over to me one day...(he) comes up to me a couple of days into Nic being on set and he's like 'Oz, I've never seen anything like it. When Nic is mic'd, I'm watching the dials, when Nic goes big, he goes right to the line. Anything more, a decibel or two over that, and it would be hard to use. Then he goes down, he goes soft and his whispering and he's barely talking, he goes right to the line. Anything past that line, you wouldn't be able to use it. He knows where the lines are. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life'." Maybe Cage can contribute to the sound design problem actually.
- OskarS 2y agoOn my off hours, I’ve been working through volumes 4A and 4B. They are really wonderful, I highly recommend them. They’re not practical for the vast majority of programmers, but the way he designs and writes about algorithms is remarkable, truly unique. The Dancing Links implementation in 4B in particular (updated significantly from his famous paper) is like a work of art, it’s such an intricate and gorgeous data structure, and blazing fast as well. Man still got it, in his 80s.
- pcranaway 2y agogiven that they are not very partical, how do you make sure to retain what you read? do you take notes? (asking as someone who only recently started reading cs-related literature)
- pastage 2y agoI feel that there is no good answer to this. For me It is more about the parts of the solution than the big problems. Some of the big solutions stay but it is mostly how you fit things together that stays with me. Everyone works differently here, e.g. I tend to reuse lots of things other people reimplement them there are drawbacks with both types of learning. I read a lot of code.
- OskarS 2y agoImplementing an algorithm like Dancing Links is a hugely rewarding experience as a programmer. You learn by doing.
- fjfaase 2y agoI have made an implementation of the original Dancing Links algorithm, but for some large problem, more than a million rows and 104 columns with an average of about sixteen positions per row, it is killed because it takes too much memory. I wonder if the updated algorithm is using less memory. My guess is that this large problem has about a hundred million solutions. So, even if it finds a hundred solutions per second, it still would require about ten days to finish. The problem, I am working on, is the number of solutions to the 'Fancy Tetris Houten Puzzel' where all pieces of the same color touch are connected by at least one side touching another side of a piece with the same color. I have been thinking about other algorithms for solving this Exact Cover problem that are less memory sensitive.
- vrnvu 2y agoI had to check... 87 years! Donald Knuth was born January 10th, 1938 Wow.
- djmips 2y agoI can dream...
- larodi 2y agoHe’s dressed in something very vivid and lively, which kind of looks like the sort of world/ethnic dress you had in villages back in the day, but I can’t tell whether is Iranian or Slavic or where in between…? Anyone care to guess better than myself?
- velo_aprx 2y agoIt kinda looks somewhat like sámi clothing to me
- PaulRobinson 2y agoI can't find the source, but I remember seeing him wearing this at another talk and him explaining that it was a hand made and stitched shirt inspired by a native group he had had some interaction with. The memory is really fading, may have involved his wife too. I can't find it, but there is an explanation out there somewhere. He wears it a lot at talks he's done since mid-2010s, it seems. Incidentally I was next to him as he was trying to stand on a window ledge to get sight of the Olympic torch coming into the square in front of Manchester Town Hall in 2012. I spoke to him, and reached out for him for a moment as I thought he was about to fall through the window, but he was all good. He came across as a very curious man, bright with questions and intelligence and younger than his years. We were both attending an event celebrating the centenary of Alan Turing, and I was surprised to find myself in a room with him, Gary Kasparov, Fred Brooks, Vint Cerf and many other luminaries of computer science. The Olympic torch came into the square outside during a lunch break, and he just couldn't help but take a look - he was the only there who seemed excited about it. He gave a talk at the dinner that night, and I saw him again in Manchester on another date when 4B had just been published, and he vaguely recognised me from the previous event when I asked him to sign it. I recount this story, because I think his shirt hints at a much more eclectic and curious mind - I definitely have seen evidence of it in other places.
- jhncls 2y agoDonald's novel "Surreal Numbers" was written during one week of a long stay in Norway [0]. So, maybe there he got his admiration for traditional Sami clothing. [0]: https://youtu.be/jB0aeePskBg https://youtu.be/jB0aeePskBg
- janvdberg 2y agoAnecdote: In 2022, while visiting San Francisco, I had the chance to explore the campus. Wandering through the quiet, empty halls of the summer buildings, I was just about to leave when I unexpectedly came across Knuth's office [1]. I had to do a double take—it was surprisingly small for someone of his stature. Yet, in a way, it felt perfectly fitting, a reflection of his unassuming nature. https://janvandenberg.blog/wp-content/img_1813-scaled.jpg https://janvandenberg.blog/wp-content/img_1813-scaled.jpg About the checks: I have not 1 but 2 checks. Small typos, nothing big: but wonderful to have these two documents.
- adakbar 2y agois he still use that office? I thought he mostly spent his time in his home office
- jagged-chisel 2y agoLooks like a recent move or temporary office. Box of random items, basic paper name “plate,” stacks on the desk …
- postexitus 2y agoThat's a pretty cool office - not sure what other types of offices are available in the campus, but still. (Typing from the open office of hell)
- a123b456c 2y agoI think it's a neat photo, and I appreciate the spirit of your post, but I recommend you to modify or delete it, unless you got his consent to post. Not that anyone would, but I would be creeped out if I learned that people were posting pictures of my office without my knowledge.
- AndrewOMartin 2y agoGod bless whoever did the subtitles. Knuth's clarity of thought is unsurpassed, but, for me at least, actually hearing him speak is like the opposite of ASMR.
- jsbg 2y agoI once met Knuth and asked him why he thinks that P = NP. He answered something about the fact that approximation solutions bridge the gap. Never meet your heroes!
- cjohnson318 2y agoOkay, but what did you reasonably expect?
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- olddustytrail 2y agoI wonder how many moronic questions Knuth has to endure? I guess this was just one more.
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- Decabytes 2y agoThe thing I find most inspiring about Donald Knuth is his decades long commitment and discipline. As a serial project, language, and distro hopper, I have a lot I could learn from him
- esturcke 2y agoI love how he handles questions: https://youtu.be/Hi8r_63LGyg?t=827 https://youtu.be/Hi8r_63LGyg?t=827. He takes the time to understand what was being asked and answers very clearly.
- b8 2y agoI got to talk to him once and he's a nice guy. Cool of him to go on Lex Fridman's podcast too.
- nextworddev 2y agoPretty crazy that he's still sharp. Unfortunately he was no longer teaching when I was an undergrad 20+ years ago