PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX HANDY 2011 1 2

Donald E. Knuth

Donald Ervin Knuth (born 1938) is a computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeri­tus at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, wide­ly regarded as one of the most influential figures in computer science. He is best known for his monumental multi-volume work, The Art of Com­puter Pro­gram­ming, begun in the 1960s and still in progress, which provides an exhaustive exploration of algorithms and their analysis, earning him the title “father of the analysis of algorithms”. Knuth’s metic­u­lous approach and clarity have made the series a cornerstone of computer science education and research. In addition to this magnum opus, he developed TeX, a sophisticated text processing system introduced in 1978, that revolutionized digital typesetting with its precision and flexibility, particularly for mathematical and scientific documents. TeX is still widely used today, reflecting Knuth’s lasting influence on both pro­gram­ming and pub­lish­ing.

At the University of Helsinki, computer science students first heard of Donald Knuth when they were introduced to the hypothetical computer MIX 1009 and its assembler language MIXAL in their first symbolic machine language course. By their second year of studies, it was clear to them that Knuth’s evolving series of books would play an important role in their studies at the Department of Computer Science. As the students began to study data structures (or information structures according to Knuth) they became familiar with the second chapter of the first volume of Knuth’s book series. And then to the further volumes: random numbers, arith­metic, sorting and searching...

In the early seventies, presumably 1974, since Knuth was then spending a semester at the University of Oslo, he also visited Helsinki and gave a guest lecture. Most of those present may not remember exactly what Knuth talked about, but they remember the atmosphere of the lecture in Domus Aca­dem­i­ca Hall II and how captivating a lecturer Knuth was in his own way. In the following years, almost all scientific authors, both at the Depar­ment of Com­puter Science in Helsinki and elsewhere in the world, switched to using TeX or, better, LATeX. In this way, Donald Knuth became part of the everyday life of all computer scientists and many others.

——————————