Oral History of Donald Knuth Part 1

Interviewed by Edward Feigenbaum on 2007-03-14 in Mountain View, CA X3926.2007
© Computer History Museum
In this wide-ranging interview conducted by Edward Feigenbaum, Donald Knuth talks about the progression of his life and career. Topics include his family background and early interest in music, physics and mathematics, his first exposure to programming, finding a mentor, and writing a doctoral thesis.
He describes how "The Art of Computer Programming" became "the story of my life", and why it was put on hold for the TeX and METAFONT projects. He also talks about personal work habits, programming style, analysis of algorithms, the influence of religion in his life, and his advice to the next generation of scientists.
* Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - www.computerhistory.org/collec... (The document contain the transcript of both sessions)
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.
Lot number: X3926.2007
Catalog number: 102658036

[@nbme-answers]

This interviewer is WONDERFUL

[@climbeverest]

Wonderful interview

[@maiconlourenco4849]

21:00: About combinatories. "A have a better intuition about discrete things than continuous."

[@climbeverest]

Master yoda, incredible almost like hearing Einstein

[@johnsimon8457]

1:11:40 “I felt a little guilty I had solved my PhD thesis in one hour…” 🤣
3:00:00 we're getting into the TeX conversation - never knew about the history, only that "knuth didn't like the look of the formatting" Didn't realize - 1978 - first commercial availability of laser printers, everything can be defined with splines; the door is now open to go hog wild on mathematical typography.

[@maiconlourenco4849]

36:00: Readings source materials

[@PauloConstantino167]

Please do a history with Ken Thompson!!

[@ArumesYT]

Don't know if you still follow CHM, but they published an oral history with Ken Thompson about a year ago.

[@nbme-answers]

2:40:55 we should write our joint papers by mail .. (or by fe-mail)