Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist,

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, and

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He is the 1974 recipient of the

ACM Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

, informally considered the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

of computer science. Knuth has been called the "father of the analysis of algorithms". He is the author of the multi-volume work ''

The Art of Computer Programming ''The Art of Computer Programming'' (''TAOCP'') is a comprehensive monograph written by the computer scientist Donald Knuth presenting programming algorithms and their analysis. Volumes 1–5 are intended to represent the central core of com ...

'' and contributed to the development of the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms and systematized formal mathematical techniques for it. In the process, he also popularized the

asymptotic notation Big ''O'' notation is a mathematical notation that describes the limiting behavior of a function when the argument tends towards a particular value or infinity. Big O is a member of a family of notations invented by Paul Bachmann, Edmund Lan ...

. In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of

theoretical computer science Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory. It is difficult to circumsc ...

, Knuth is the creator of the

TeX Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...

computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the

Computer Modern Computer Modern is the original family of typefaces used by the typesetting program TeX. It was created by Donald Knuth with his Metafont program, and was most recently updated in 1992. Computer Modern, or variants of it, remains very widely u ...

family of typefaces. As a writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB and

CWEB Web is a computer programming system created by Donald E. Knuth as the first implementation of what he called "literate programming": the idea that one could create software as works of literature, by embedding source code inside descriptive t ...

computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate

literate programming Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced in 1984 by Donald Knuth in which a computer program is given as an explanation of its logic in a natural language, such as English, interspersed (embedded) with snippets of macros an ...

, and designed the MIX/

MMIX MMIX (pronounced ''em-mix'') is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture designed by Donald Knuth, with significant contributions by John L. Hennessy (who contributed to the design of the MIPS architecture) and Richard L. ...

instruction set architectures In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...

. Knuth strongly opposes the granting of

software patent A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, libraries, user interface, or algorithm. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time, u ...

s, having expressed his opinion to the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

and

European Patent Organisation The European Patent Organisation (sometimes abbreviated EPOrg in order to distinguish it from the European Patent Office, one of the two organs of the organisation) is a public international organisation created in 1977 by its contracting states t ...

Biography

Early life

Knuth was born in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, to Ervin Henry Knuth and Louise Marie Bohning. He describes his heritage as "Midwestern Lutheran German". His father owned a small printing business and taught bookkeeping. Donald, a student at

Milwaukee Lutheran High School Milwaukee Lutheran High School (MLHS) is a secondary school located in Milwaukee, in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The school was originally known as Lutheran High School (LHS). LHS was established in 1903, making Milwaukee Lutheran the oldest L ...

, thought of ingenious ways to solve problems. For example, in eighth grade, he entered a contest to find the number of words that the letters in "Ziegler's Giant Bar" could be rearranged to create; the judges had identified 2,500 such words. With time gained away from school due to a pretend stomach ache, and working the problem the other way, Knuth used an unabridged dictionary and determined if each dictionary entry could be formed using the letters in the phrase. Using this algorithm, he identified over 4,500 words, winning the contest. As prizes, the school received a new television and enough candy bars for all of his schoolmates to eat.

Education

Knuth received a scholarship in physics to the

Case Institute of Technology Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location i ...

(now part of Case Western Reserve University) in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio, enrolling in 1956. He also joined the Beta Nu Chapter of the

Theta Chi fraternity Theta Chi () is an international college fraternity. It was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University then-located in Norwich, Vermont, and has initiated more than 200,000 members and currently has over 8,700 collegiate members across Nort ...

. While studying physics at Case, Knuth was introduced to the IBM 650, an early commercial

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

. After reading the computer's manual, Knuth decided to rewrite the

assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

and

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

code for the machine used in his school, because he believed he could do it better. In 1958, Knuth created a program to help his school's basketball team win their games. He assigned "values" to players in order to gauge their probability of getting points, a novel approach that ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'' and ''

CBS Evening News The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature st ...

'' later reported on. Knuth was one of the founding editors of Case Institute's ''Engineering and Science Review'', which won a national award as best technical magazine in 1959. He then switched from physics to mathematics, and received two degrees from Case in 1960: his bachelor of science degree, and simultaneously a master of science by a special award of the faculty, who considered his work exceptionally outstanding. In 1963, with mathematician Marshall Hall as his adviser, he earned a PhD in mathematics from the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

for a thesis entitled ''Finite Semifields and Projective Planes''.

Early work

After receiving his PhD, Knuth joined Caltech's faculty as an assistant professor. He accepted a commission to write a book on computer

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

s. While working on this project, Knuth decided that he could not adequately treat the topic without first developing a fundamental theory of computer programming, which became ''

''. He originally planned to publish this as a single book. As Knuth developed his outline for the book, he concluded that he required six volumes, and then seven, to thoroughly cover the subject. He published the first volume in 1968. Just before publishing the first volume of ''The Art of Computer Programming'', Knuth left Caltech to accept employment with the Institute for Defense Analyses' Communications Research Division, then situated on the

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

campus, which was performing mathematical research in

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

to support the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

. In 1967, Knuth attended a Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics conference and someone asked what he did. At the time, computer science was partitioned into

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and

programming languages A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

. Based on his study and ''The Art of Computer Programming'' book, Knuth decided the next time someone asked he would say, "Analysis of algorithms." Knuth then left his position to join the

faculty in 1969, where he is now Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus.

Writings

Knuth is a writer, as well as a computer scientist.

''The Art of Computer Programming'' (''TAOCP'')

In the 1970s, Knuth described computer science as "a totally new field with no real identity. And the standard of available publications was not that high. A lot of the papers coming out were quite simply wrong. ... So one of my motivations was to put straight a story that had been very badly told." From 1972 to 1973, Knuth spent a year at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

among people such as

Ole-Johan Dahl Ole-Johan Dahl (12 October 1931 – 29 June 2002) was a Norwegian computer scientist. Dahl was a professor of computer science at the University of Oslo and is considered to be one of the fathers of Simula and object-oriented programming along w ...

. This is where he had originally intended to write the seventh volume in his book series, a volume that was to deal with programming languages. However, Knuth had only finished the first two volumes when he came to Oslo, and thus spent the year on the third volume, next to teaching. The third volume in the series came out just after Knuth returned to Stanford in 1973. By 2011, Volume 4A had been published. '' Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science'' 2nd ed., which originated with an expansion of the mathematical preliminaries section of Volume 1 of ''TAoCP'', has also been published. In April 2020, Knuth said he anticipates that Volume 4 will have at least parts A through F. Volume 4B was published in October 2022.

Other works

Knuth is also the author of ''

Surreal Numbers In mathematics, the surreal number system is a totally ordered proper class containing the real numbers as well as infinite and infinitesimal numbers, respectively larger or smaller in absolute value than any positive real number. The surrea ...

'', a mathematical novelette on

John Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...

set theory Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly conce ...

construction of an alternate system of numbers. Instead of simply explaining the subject, the book seeks to show the development of the mathematics. Knuth wanted the book to prepare students for doing original, creative research. In 1995, Knuth wrote the foreword to the book ''A=B'' by

Marko Petkovšek Marko Petkovšek is a Slovenian mathematician, born: 1955, working mainly in symbolic computation. He is a professor of discrete and computational mathematics at the University of Ljubljana. He completed his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University u ...

Herbert Wilf Herbert Saul Wilf (June 13, 1931 – January 7, 2012) was a mathematician, specializing in combinatorics and graph theory. He was the Thomas A. Scott Professor of Mathematics in Combinatorial Analysis and Computing at the University of Pennsylv ...

and

Doron Zeilberger Doron Zeilberger (דורון ציילברגר, born 2 July 1950 in Haifa, Israel) is an Israeli mathematician, known for his work in combinatorics. Education and career He received his doctorate from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1976, u ...

. Knuth is also an occasional contributor of language puzzles to '' Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics''. Knuth has also delved into

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

. He contributed articles to the ''

Journal of Recreational Mathematics The ''Journal of Recreational Mathematics'' was an American journal dedicated to recreational mathematics, started in 1968. It had generally been published quarterly by the Baywood Publishing Company, until it ceased publication with the last issue ...

'' beginning in the 1960s, and was acknowledged as a major contributor in Joseph Madachy's ''Mathematics on Vacation''. Knuth has also appeared in a number of

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channel has since expanded its ...

and Computerphile videos on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

where he has discussed topics from writing ''Surreal Numbers'' to why he does not use email.

Works regarding his religious beliefs

In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

, is also the author of ''3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated'', in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic 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. Subsequently, he was invited to give a set of lectures at MIT on his views on religion and computer science behind his 3:16 project, resulting in another book, ''

Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About ''Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About'' (2001) is a book by Donald E. Knuth, published by CSLI Publications of Stanford, California. The book contains the annotated transcripts of six public lectures given by Donald E. Knuth at MIT on t ...

'', where he published the lectures ''"God and Computer Science"''.

Opinion on software patents

Knuth is strongly opposed to the policy of granting

s for trivial solutions that should be obvious, but has expressed more nuanced views for nontrivial solutions such as the

interior-point method Interior-point methods (also referred to as barrier methods or IPMs) are a certain class of algorithms that solve linear and nonlinear convex optimization problems. An interior point method was discovered by Soviet mathematician I. I. Dikin in 1 ...

of linear programming. He has expressed his disagreement directly to both the

and

Computer Musings

Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at

, which he titled "Computer Musings". He was a visiting professor at the

Oxford University Department of Computer Science The Department of Computer Science is the computer science department of the University of Oxford, England, which is part of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. It was founded in 1957 as the Computing Laboratory. ...

in the United Kingdom until 2017 and an Honorary Fellow of

Magdalen College Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

Programming

Digital typesetting

In the 1970s the publishers of

TAOCP ''The Art of Computer Programming'' (''TAOCP'') is a comprehensive monograph written by the computer scientist Donald Knuth presenting programming algorithms and their analysis. Volumes 1–5 are intended to represent the central core of compu ...

abandoned

Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...

in favor of phototypesetting. Knuth became so frustrated with the inability of the latter system to approach the quality of the previous volumes, which were typeset using the older system, that he took time out to work on digital typesetting and created

and Metafont.

Literate programming

While developing TeX, Knuth created a new methodology of programming, which he called

, because he believed that programmers should think of programs as works of literature. "Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do." Knuth embodied the idea of literate programming in the WEB system. The same WEB source is used to ''weave'' a TeX file, and to ''tangle'' a Pascal source file. These in their turn produce a readable description of the program and an executable binary respectively. A later iteration of the system,

, replaces Pascal with C. Knuth used WEB to program TeX and METAFONT, and published both programs as books: ''TeX: The Program'', which was originally published in 1986, and ''METAFONT: The Program'', which was originally published in 1986. Around the same time,

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

, the now-widely adopted macro package based on TeX, was first developed by

Leslie Lamport Leslie B. Lamport (born February 7, 1941 in Brooklyn) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. Lamport is best known for his seminal work in distributed systems, and as the initial developer of the document preparation system LaTeX an ...

, who later published its first user manual in 1986.

Music

Knuth is an

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and a

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. In 2016 he completed a musical piece for organ titled ''Fantasia Apocalyptica'', which he describes as "translation of the Greek text of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine into music". It was premièred in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

on January 10, 2018.

Personal life

Donald Knuth married Nancy Jill Carter on 24 June 1961, while he was a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. They have two children: John Martin Knuth and Jennifer Sierra Knuth.

Chinese name

Knuth's

Chinese name Chinese names or Chinese personal names are names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Chinese-speaking world throughout East and Southeast Asia (ESEA). In addition, many names used in Japan, Korea and Vietnam are often a ...

Gao Gao , or Gawgaw/Kawkaw, is a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region. The city is located on the River Niger, east-southeast of Timbuktu on the left bank at the junction with the Tilemsi valley. For much of its history Gao was an impor ...

Dena (). In 1977, he was given this name by Frances Yao, shortly before making a 3-week trip to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. In the 1980 Chinese translation of Volume 1 of ''The Art of Computer Programming'' (), Knuth explains that he embraced his Chinese name because he wanted to be known by the growing numbers of computer programmers in China at the time. In 1989, his Chinese name was placed atop the ''Journal of Computer Science and Technology'' header, which Knuth says "makes me feel close to all Chinese people although I cannot speak your language".

Health concerns

In 2006, Knuth was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery in December that year and stated, "a little bit of radiation therapy ... as a precaution but the prognosis looks pretty good", as he reported in his video autobiography.

Humor

Knuth used to pay a

finder's fee ''Finder's Fee'' is a 2001 American film directed by Jeff Probst from his original screenplay. Plot The film takes place over the course of a single evening. Tepper, played by Erik Palladino, finds a wallet on his way home from work. He contac ...

of $2.56 for any typographical errors or mistakes discovered in his books, because "256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar", and $0.32 for "valuable suggestions". According to an article in the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

's ''Technology Review'', these

Knuth reward check Knuth reward checks are checks or check-like certificates awarded by computer scientist Donald Knuth for finding technical, typographical, or historical errors, or making substantial suggestions for his publications. The ''MIT Technology Review'' ...

s are "among computerdom's most prized trophies". Knuth had to stop sending real checks in 2008 due to bank fraud, and instead now gives each error finder a "certificate of deposit" from a publicly listed balance in his fictitious "Bank of

San Serriffe San Serriffe is a fictional island nation invented for April Fools' Day 1977, by Britain's ''The Guardian'' newspaper.''The Guardian'Special Report: San Serriffe. 1 April 1977 It was featured in a seven-page hoax supplement, published in the ...

". He once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." Knuth published his first "scientific" article in a school magazine in 1957 under the title "The

Potrzebie Potrzebie (; dative/ locative of '' potrzeba'', "a need") is a Polish word popularized by its non sequitur use as a running gag in the early issues of '' Mad'' not long after the comic book began in 1952. Origin ''Mad'' editor Harvey Kurtzma ...

System of Weights and Measures". In it, he defined the fundamental unit of

length Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Interna ...

as the thickness of '' Mad'' No. 26, and named the fundamental unit of

force In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a p ...

"whatmeworry". ''Mad'' published the article in issue No. 33 (June 1957). To demonstrate the concept of

recursion Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathemati ...

, Knuth intentionally referred "Circular definition" and "Definition, circular" to each other in the index of ''

, Volume 1''. The preface of ''

Concrete Mathematics ''Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science'', by Ronald Graham, Donald Knuth, and Oren Patashnik, first published in 1989, is a textbook that is widely used in computer-science departments as a substantive but light-hearted treatme ...

'' has the following paragraph: At the TUG 2010 Conference, Knuth announced a satirical

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

-based successor to TeX, titled "iTeX" (, performed with a bell ringing), which would support features such as arbitrarily scaled irrational units, 3D printing, input from seismographs and heart monitors, animation, and stereophonic sound.

Awards and honors

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 ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

, the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

, the

John von Neumann Medal The IEEE John von Neumann Medal was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1990 and may be presented annually "for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology." The achievements may be theoretical, technological, or ...

, and the

Kyoto Prize The is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, ...

. Knuth was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (DFBCS) in 1980 in recognition of Knuth's contributions to the field of computer science. In 1990 he was awarded the one-of-a-kind academic title of ''Professor of The Art of Computer Programming'', which has since been revised to ''Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming''. Knuth was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975. He was also elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in 1981 for organizing vast subject areas of computer science so that they are accessible to all segments of the computing community. In 1992, he became an associate of the French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and teaching at

in order to finish ''

''. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2003. Knuth was elected as a Fellow (first class of Fellows) of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to mathematics. He is a member of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

. In 2012, he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

and a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. Other awards and honors include: * First ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, 1971 *

, 1974 *

Lester R. Ford Award Lester is an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname and given name. Notable people and characters with the name include: People Given name * Lester Bangs (1948–1982), American music critic * Lester W. Bentley (1908–1972), American artist from Wisc ...

, 1975 and 1993 * Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecturer, 1978 *

, 1979 * Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

, 1985 *

Franklin Medal The Franklin Medal was a science award presented from 1915 until 1997 by the Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the Am ...

, 1988 *

, 1995 *

Harvey Prize Harvey Prize is an annual Israeli award for breakthroughs in science and technology, as well as contributions to peace in the Middle East granted by the Technion in Haifa. History The prize is named for industrialist and inventor Leo Harvey. T ...

from the Technion, 1995 *

, 1996 * Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his fundamental early work in the history of computing algorithms, development of the TeX typesetting language, and for major contributions to mathematics and computer science." 1998 * Asteroid

21656 Knuth Events January–March * January 5 – The First War of Villmergen, a civil war in the Confederation of Switzerland pitting its Protestant and Roman Catholic cantons against each other, breaks out but is resolved by March 7. The ...

, named in his honor in May 2001 * Katayanagi Prize, 2010 *

BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...

in the category of Information and Communication Technologies, 2010 * Turing Lecture, 2011 *

Stanford University School of Engineering Stanford University School of Engineering is one of the schools of Stanford University. The current dean is Jennifer Widom, the former senior associate dean of faculty affairs and computer science chair. She is the school's 10th dean. List of ...

Hero Award, 2011 *

Flajolet Lecture Prize The Philippe Flajolet Lecture Prize is awarded to for contributions to analytic combinatorics and analysis of algorithms, in the fields of theoretical computer science. This prize is named in memory of Philippe Flajolet. History The Flajolet Le ...

, 2014

Publications

A short list of his publications include: ''The Art of Computer Programming'': # # # # # # # # # # # # # ''Computers and Typesetting'' (all books are hardcover unless otherwise noted): # , x+483pp. # (softcover). # , xviii+600pp. # , xii+361pp. # (softcover). # , xviii+566pp. # , xvi+588pp. # Books of collected papers: # # # # # , (paperback) # , (paperback) # Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Design of Algorithms (Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information—CSLI Lecture Notes, no. 191), 2010. (cloth), (paperback) # Donald E. Knuth, Selected Papers on Fun and Games (Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information—CSLI Lecture Notes, no. 192), 2011. (cloth), (paperback) # Donald E. Knuth, Companion to the Papers of Donald Knuth (Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information—CSLI Lecture Notes, no. 202), 2011. (cloth), (paperback) Other books: # xiv+657 pp. # # Donald E. Knuth, The Stanford GraphBase: A Platform for Combinatorial Computing (New York, ACM Press) 1993. second paperback printing 2009. # Donald E. Knuth, 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated (Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions), 1990. # Donald E. Knuth,

(Center for the Study of Language and Information—CSLI Lecture Notes no 136), 2001. # Donald E. Knuth, MMIXware: A RISC Computer for the Third Millennium (Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag— Lecture Notes in Computer Science, no. 1750), 1999. viii+550pp. # Donald E. Knuth and Silvio Levy, The CWEB System of Structured Documentation (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley), 1993. iv+227pp. . Third printing 2001 with hypertext support, ii + 237 pp. # Donald E. Knuth, Tracy L. Larrabee, and Paul M. Roberts, Mathematical Writing (Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Association of America), 1989. ii+115pp # Daniel H. Greene and Donald E. Knuth, Mathematics for the Analysis of Algorithms (Boston: Birkhäuser), 1990. viii+132pp. # Donald E. Knuth, , 1976. 106pp. # Donald E. Knuth, Stable Marriage and Its Relation to Other Combinatorial Problems: An Introduction to the Mathematical Analysis of Algorithms. # Donald E. Knuth, Axioms and Hulls (Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag—Lecture Notes in Computer Science, no. 606), 1992. ix+109pp.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Donald Knuth's home page
at

. * * Knuth discusses software patenting, structured programming, collaboration and his development of

. * * * * * * *
Biography of Donald Knuth
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
Donald Ervin Knuth – Stanford Lectures (Archive)

Interview with Donald Knuth
by

Lex Fridman Lex Fridman ( /'lɛks 'friːdmæn/; , Russian: ) is a Russian-American computer scientist, podcaster, and an artificial intelligence researcher. He is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he hosts the ''Lex Fr ...

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