我第一天去见我的研究生导师,他给了我一套Donald E. Knuth的 “The Art of Computer Programming”,让我先读了这本书再说。
《计算机程序设计艺术》重译自Donald E. Knuth(汉名高德纳)的三卷著作:"The Art of Computer Programming: 1. Fundamental Algorithms; 2. Seminumerical Algorithms; 3. Sorting and Searching";三卷中文名为《基本算法》、《半数值算法》及《排序与查找》。
这本书内容博大精深,作者因为三卷书获得美国计算机协会1974年图灵奖(该奖被国际公认为计算机科学领域的最高奖项)。
作者D. E. Knuth是在计算机学界十分著名的学者,在本领域享有很高权威和盛名,他的这部著作是无数计算机专业人员的学习教材和参考读物,也是许多专业研究工作者经常阅读的经典,已被翻译为几十种文字在世界各地出版,英文原版书已经是第11次印刷。
该书1999年底被American Scientist列为20世纪最佳12部学术专著之一(与狄拉克的量子力学、爱因斯坦的相对论、曼德布罗特的分形论、鲍林的化学键、罗素和怀特海德的数学基础、冯诺意曼和摩根斯坦的博弈论、维纳的控制论、伍德沃和霍夫曼的轨道对称性、费曼的量子电动力学等科学史上的经典著作并列)。
Donald E. Knuth,1938年出生于Wisconsin。1960年,当他毕业于Case Institute of Technology数学系时,因为成绩过于出色,被校方打破历史惯例,同时授予学士和硕士学位。他随即进入大名鼎鼎的加州理工学院数学系,仅用三年时间便取得博士学位,此时年仅25岁。
毕业后留校任助理教授,28岁时升为副教授。30岁时,加盟斯坦福大学计算机系,任正教授。从31岁那年起,他开始出版他的历史性经典巨著:The Art of Computer Programming。他计划共写7卷,然而仅仅出版三卷之后,已经震惊世界,使他获得计算机科学界的最高荣誉Turing Award,此时,他年仅36岁。后来,此书与牛顿的“自然哲学的数学原理”等一起,被评为“世界历史上最伟大的十种科学著作”之一。相信学过数据结构和编译原理的人都知道KMP算法和LR(K)算法有多么不可思议,然而此书中这样的算法比比皆是!
Knuth获得图灵奖时为36岁,他是历史上最年轻的图灵奖获得者,甚至有可能永远把这个记录保持下去。
- posted on 05/28/2008
我一直在读,不过觉得好费脑子,从来没读完过。:(
赞助一下:
1. Knuth
学计算机的人都知道这位大牛人吧。昨天给人写篇稿子,查查他的消息,一看,2006年诊断出了癌症。叹,多牛的人,都有衰老的时候。
他的网站上还有很多关于他的管风琴的事情,reference写得清清楚楚,好像论文。他说自己的思维习惯是,别人分析算法,可能到了解“哪个快”为止,而他要坚持算出快多少。对任何事情都坚持量化是他的习惯。
Knuth还有一奇就是运气很好,是天才但没有受到大挫伤,也没有赶上时代动乱,总之基本一帆风顺地,做出一项项大成就,差不多算是成就最多的计算机科学家。这样说来,科学家呢,还是活在顺境中好,不过科学家又是“人”,所有成就都是人做出来的,而人常常很脆弱无力地,受环境左右。这样说来,人又是受点挫折好。不受挫折的人,如果一直都在保护他的环境里,也就是人的容错力低,但是处在无错的环境,当然是好上加好,问题是,这种条件可遇不可求---尤其是对中国人来说,基本不要想。
所以所谓吃苦而成才的说法,是对这个世界多数情况下的一种防卫--因为到处是荆棘,所以咱们得长好厚茧。不用长厚茧而去没有荆棘的地方当然最省事,可是活着不易啊,你我还是得让自己粗糙得头上长角身上长刺。
- posted on 05/28/2008
Knuth会弹管风琴,慧元对他很有研究;对《圣经》也有极深刻的研究,写了专著。
他以他独特的幽默感闻名:
Knuth is a famous programmer known for his professional humor.
One of Knuth's reward checksHe pays a finder's fee of $2.56 for any typographical errors or mistakes discovered in his books, because "256 pennies is one hexadecimal dollar". (His bounty for errata in 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, is, however, $3.16). According to an article in MIT's Technology Review, these reward checks are "among computerdom's most prized trophies".
Version numbers of his TeX software approach the transcendental number π, that is versions increment in the style 3, 3.1, 3.14 and so on. Version numbers of Metafont approach the number e similarly.
He once warned users of his software, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
All appendices in the Computers and Typesetting series have titles that begin with the letter identifying the appendix.
TAOCP v3 (Second Edition) has the index entry "Royalties, use of, 407". Page 407 has no explicit mention of royalties, but however does contain a diagram of an "organ-pipe arrangement" in Figure 2. Apparently the purchase of the pipe organ in his home was financed by royalties from TAOCP.(In the first edition of the work, the relevant page is 405.)
From the Preface of Concrete Mathematics: When Knuth taught Concrete Mathematics at Stanford for the first time, he explained the somewhat strange title by saying that it was his attempt to teach a math course that was hard instead of soft. He announced that, contrary to the expectations of some of his colleagues, he was not going to teach the Theory of Aggregates, nor Stone's Embedding Theorem, nor even the Stone-Čech compactification. (Several students from the civil engineering department got up and quietly left the room.)
Knuth published his first "scientific" article in a school magazine in 1957 under the title "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures." In it, he defined the fundamental unit of length as the thickness of MAD magazine #26, and named the fundamental unit of force "whatmeworry". MAD magazine bought the article and published it in the #33 June 1957 issue.
Knuth's first "mathematical" article was a short paper submitted to a "science talent search" contest for high-school seniors in 1955, and published in 1960, in which he discussed number systems where the radix was negative. He further generalized this to number systems where the radix was a complex number. In particular, he defined the quater-imaginary number system, which uses the imaginary number 2i as the base, having the unusual feature that every complex number can be represented with the digits 0, 1, 2, and 3, without a sign.
Knuth's article about computational complexity of songs was reprinted twice in computer science journals.
- Re: Knuth and Knuth's humorposted on 05/28/2008
哈!他的书我也啃过,当然没啃完。
总觉得在这种领域里的长期学习和实践会使人的思维得到一种训练和规范,不自觉的应用到一般思维之中去。这种训练使人长于严谨的逻辑思维,但不知是否也有抑制非逻辑思维的副作用,比如罗曼蒂克式的想像?:-) - Re: Knuth and Knuth's humorposted on 05/28/2008
What do you need 非逻辑思维, 罗曼蒂克式的想像 for? People either 逻辑思维 or goof. That's it.
gz wrote:
哈!他的书我也啃过,当然没啃完。
总觉得在这种领域里的长期学习和实践会使人的思维得到一种训练和规范,不自觉的应用到一般思维之中去。这种训练使人长于严禁的逻辑思维,但不知是否也有抑制非逻辑思维的副作用,比如罗曼蒂克式的想像?:-) - Re: Knuth and Knuth's humorposted on 05/28/2008
昨天刚看到 Knuth 的新经文:http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856
老头儿对咱们学不会他的 literate programming 很不满意。 - Re: Knuth and Knuth's humorposted on 05/28/2008
That's what I thought! :-D
touche wrote:
What do you need 非逻辑思维, 罗曼蒂克式的想像 for? People either 逻辑思维 or goof. That's it.
gz wrote:
哈!他的书我也啃过,当然没啃完。
总觉得在这种领域里的长期学习和实践会使人的思维得到一种训练和规范,不自觉的应用到一般思维之中去。这种训练使人长于严禁的逻辑思维,但不知是否也有抑制非逻辑思维的副作用,比如罗曼蒂克式的想像?:-) - Re: Knuth and Knuth's humorposted on 05/28/2008
Thanks, an interesting read. The master has spoken. I find the idea of "literate programming" worth pondering.
行人 wrote:
昨天刚看到 Knuth 的新经文:http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856 老头儿对咱们学不会他的 literate programming 很不满意。 - Re: Knuth and Knuth's humorposted on 05/28/2008
I am benefiting from his TeX. I write everyday in LaTeX.
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