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 describes the checks as "among computerdom's most prized trophies". [1]
Knuth started rewarding people for discovering errors in his books after he published the first volume of The Art of Computer Programming in 1968. [2] Initially, Knuth sent real, negotiable checks to recipients. He stopped doing so in October 2008 because of problems with check fraud. As a replacement, he started his own "Bank of San Serriffe", in the fictional nation of San Serriffe, which keeps an account for everyone who found an error since 2006. [2] Knuth now sends out "hexadecimal certificates" instead of negotiable checks.
As of October 2001 [update] , Knuth reported having written more than 2,000 checks, with an average value exceeding $8 per check. [3] By March 2005 [update] , the total value of the checks signed by Knuth was over $20,000. [4] Very few of these checks were actually cashed, even the largest ones. More often they have been framed and kept as "bragging rights". [5] [6]
Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text. Stupidity: Cashing that $2.56 check you got.
In the preface of each of his books and on his website, [8] Knuth offers a reward of $2.56 (USD) to the first person to find each error in his published books, whether it be technical, typographical, or historical. Knuth explains that $2.56, or 256 cents, corresponds to one hexadecimal dollar. [9] "Valuable suggestions" are worth 32 cents, or 1⁄8 the value of an error (0.2 hexadecimal dollars or 20 hexadecimal cents). In his earlier books a smaller reward was offered. For example, the 2nd edition of The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1, offered $2.00.
The reward for coding errors found in Knuth's TeX and Metafont programs (as distinguished from errors in Knuth's books) followed an audacious scheme inspired by the wheat and chessboard problem, [10] starting at $2.56, and doubling every year until it reached $327.68. [3] Recipients of this "sweepstakes" reward include Chris Thompson (Cambridge) and Bogusław L. Jackowski (Gdańsk), [11] and also Peter Breitenlohner on 20 March 1995. [12]
Each check's memo field identifies the book and page number. 1.23 indicates an error on page 23 of Volume 1. (1.23) indicates a valuable suggestion on that page. The symbol Θ denotes the book Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About , KLR denotes the book Mathematical Writing (by Knuth, Larrabee, and Roberts), GKP and CM denote the book Concrete Mathematics (by Graham, Knuth, and Patashnik), f1 denotes fascicle 1, CMT denotes the book Computer Modern Typefaces, DT denotes the book Digital Typography, SN denotes Surreal Numbers, CWEB denotes the book The CWEB System of Structured Documentation, DA denotes the book Selected Papers on Design of Algorithms, FG denotes the book Selected Papers on Fun and Games, and MM denotes the book MMIXware - A RISC Computer for the Third Millennium.
Knuth is often unable to answer immediately when a reader finds a mistake in one of his books or programs. In some cases, the delay has been several years. For example, on 1 July 1996, Knuth sent out more than 250 letters, 125 of which contained checks, for errors reported in The Art of Computer Programming since the summer of 1981. A few of these remain unclaimed as of May 2006. [13] When Knuth is not able to reply immediately, he adds 5% interest, compounded continuously, to the reward.
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is a finite sequence of mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing calculations and data processing. More advanced algorithms can use conditionals to divert the code execution through various routes and deduce valid inferences.
Donald Ervin Knuth is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer science. Knuth has been called the "father of the analysis of algorithms".
Hexadecimal is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of sixteen. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using ten symbols, hexadecimal uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols "0"–"9" to represent values 0 to 9 and "A"–"F" to represent values from ten to fifteen.
Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced in 1984 by Donald Knuth in which a computer program is given as an explanation of how it works in a natural language, such as English, interspersed (embedded) with snippets of macros and traditional source code, from which compilable source code can be generated. The approach is used in scientific computing and in data science routinely for reproducible research and open access purposes. Literate programming tools are used by millions of programmers today.
TeX, stylized within the system as TeX, is a typesetting program which was designed and written by computer scientist and Stanford University professor Donald Knuth and first released in 1978. The term now refers to the system of extensions – which includes software programs called TeX engines, sets of TeX macros, and packages which provide extra typesetting functionality – built around the original TeX language. TeX is a popular means of typesetting complex mathematical formulae; it has been noted as one of the most sophisticated digital typographical systems.
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
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 computer programming for sequential machines.
Hermann Zapf was a German type designer and calligrapher who lived in Darmstadt, Germany. He was married to the calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Typefaces he designed include Palatino, Optima, and Zapfino. He is considered one of the greatest type designers of all time.
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 text, rather than the reverse, in an order that is convenient for exposition to human readers, rather than in the order demanded by the compiler.
Typesetting is the composition of text for publication, display, or distribution by means of arranging physical type in mechanical systems or glyphs in digital systems representing characters. Stored types are retrieved and ordered according to a language's orthography for visual display. Typesetting requires one or more fonts. One significant effect of typesetting was that authorship of works could be spotted more easily, making it difficult for copiers who have not gained permission.
Hexspeak is a novelty form of variant English spelling using the hexadecimal digits. Created by programmers as memorable magic numbers, hexspeak words can serve as a clear and unique identifier with which to mark memory or data.
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 used in scientific publishing, especially in disciplines that make frequent use of mathematical notation.
A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, utility, or application program.
Addison–Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson plc, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison–Wesley also distributes its technical titles through the O'Reilly Online Learning e-reference service. Addison–Wesley's majority of sales derive from the United States (55%) and Europe (22%).
AMS Euler is an upright cursive typeface, commissioned by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and designed and created by Hermann Zapf with the assistance of Donald Knuth and his Stanford graduate students. It tries to emulate a mathematician's style of handwriting mathematical entities on a blackboard, which is upright rather than italic. It blends very well with other typefaces made by Hermann Zapf, such as Palatino, Aldus and Melior, but very badly with the default TeX font Computer Modern. All the alphabets were implemented with the computer-assisted design system Metafont developed by Knuth. Zapf designed and drew the Euler alphabets in 1980–81 and provided critique and advice of digital proofs in 1983 and later. The typeface family is copyright by American Mathematical Society, 1983. Euler Metafont development was done by Stanford computer science and/or digital typography students; first Scott Kim, then Carol Twombly and Daniel Mills, and finally David Siegel, all assisted by John Hobby. Siegel finished the Metafont Euler digitization project as his M.S. thesis in 1985.
Scott Kim is an American puzzle and video game designer, artist, and author of Korean descent. He started writing an occasional "Boggler" column for Discover magazine in 1990, and became an exclusive columnist in 1999, and created hundreds of other puzzles for magazines such as Scientific American and Games, as well as thousands of puzzles for computer games. He was the holder of the Harold Keables chair at Iolani School in 2008.
Line breaking, also known as word wrapping, is breaking a section of text into lines so that it will fit into the available width of a page, window or other display area. In text display, line wrap is continuing on a new line when a line is full, so that each line fits into the viewable window, allowing text to be read from top to bottom without any horizontal scrolling. Word wrap is the additional feature of most text editors, word processors, and web browsers, of breaking lines between words rather than within words, where possible. Word wrap makes it unnecessary to hard-code newline delimiters within paragraphs, and allows the display of text to adapt flexibly and dynamically to displays of varying sizes.
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 treatment of the analysis of algorithms.
The history of sentence spacing is the evolution of sentence spacing conventions from the introduction of movable type in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg to the present day.
Peter Karow is a German entrepreneur, inventor and software developer. He holds several patents in the field of desktop publishing and is known for his work on computer fonts. He contributed with several books and patents to the development of operating systems for computers. He is recognized as the inventor of outline computer fonts.