Recent News

[click here to zip down to the schedule of public lectures]

Happy Turing Year to All!

Many celebrations are being planned in 2012 to commemorate the centennial year of Alan Turing, one of the principal “fathers” of computer science, who was born in 1912. By coincidence, my own biological father and mother were also born in that year. I plan to make cameo appearances at ACM's event in San Francisco and at the major symposium in Manchester, both in June (see below).

For the secret of the Turing number 885205232, see pages 45 and 53 of Selected Papers on Fun and Games.

Watch a Video

Here's a recently posted video interview by Daisy Morin that was filmed at my house on 16 November 2009.

The Theory of Traces

I've spent a month this spring learning more about the beautiful theory of traces, which I had planned to discuss in Volume 5 of The Art of Computer Programming but I'm now moving some of it up into Volume 4B. This theory is isomorphic to what Xavier Viennot calls "heaps of pieces"; and I recently learned of a cool video of a lecture in which he explains many of the reasons why I love the subject.

Check Out My Latest Book

This year I'm celebrating the recent completion of a book that I've dreamt about for many, many years:

Companion to the Papers of Donald Knuth

(and you can discover more about it by clicking).

A Blast From The Past

Here are excerpts from the Memorial Day Programming Race organized by John McCarthy on 31 May 1971. (Mentioned at Stanford's McCarthy Celebration, 25 March 2012.)

New Updates to Computers & Typesetting

Spiffy new printings of the hardcover versions of The TeXbook, TeX: The Program, and The METAFONTbook are now available---produced for the first time entirely with modern technology! Hurray! Now is a perfect time to replace any old copies that have become dog-eared after years of (ab)use. (Click here for full details.)

Public lectures in 2012

Although I must stay home most of the time and work on yet more books that I've promised to complete, I do occasionally get into speaking mode. Here is a current schedule of events that have been planned for this year so far:

Wednesday, January 11, 13:30pm at Schweizer Tag für den Informatikunterricht (STIU) in St. Gallen, Switzerland: Speaking briefly as I receive the “Ausbildungs- und Beratungszentrum für Informatikunterricht Platinum Gold Medal of Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich for Computer Science and Computer Science Education”
Saturday, January 14, 14:00pm in Audi Max at ETH Zürich: Speaking at Swiss Olympiad Day, "All Questions Answered" (watch video)
Thursday, January 26, 12:30pm at the Stanford CS Theory Lunch: speaking informally about "The Plastic Constant and Complexity Theory"
Thursday, April 12, 12:30pm at the Stanford CS Theory Lunch: speaking informally about "Reluctant Doubling"
Sunday, April 22, 9:15am at the Adult Forum of First Lutheran Church, Palo Alto: leading an informal discussion of the Bible verse Acts 3:16
Sunday, April 29, 9:15am at the Adult Forum of First Lutheran Church, Palo Alto: leading an informal discussion of the Bible verse 1 John 3:16
Saturday, June 16, 11:15am at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco: Participating in a panel at the ACM Turing Centenary Celebration
Tuesday June 19, 10am: Giving a keynote talk, followed by a break and then a Q&A session, at the SAT 2012 Conference in Trento, Italy
Sunday June 24, plus-or-minus 2 days: speaking (impromptu) in connection with the banquet of The Alan Turing Centenary Conference in ManchesterUK

Click here for the ``recent news'' that was current at the end of 2011, if you're interested in old news as well as new news.