A Very Bad Estimator (with Donald Knuth) - Numberphile Podcast

[@kenchilton]

I have heard two uses of a "rhinocerous attitude". One definition is an attitude of charging in before knowing all the facts. It is a tendency to attack a problem first and deal with the details or consequences later. It is the character belonging to the first to jump to action, following the call to “do it first, apologize later” or “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” The other definition is an attitude of resiliency, a persistence and will to succeed in face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. It is a confident attitude that can not accept the phrase ”it cannot be done”. I have been accused of both of these rhinoceros attitudes. Nice to hear from Don Knuth again. Peace and grace, sir.

[@brianonuanain7535]

Brilliant interview. Knuth is a gift to humanity and Brady is a gift to journalism.

[@arthurdepina]

What a treat! Professor Knuth is such a gem.

[@MonsieurBiga]

Thanks for TeX bro

[@sudhanvasapre5171]

Oh what a joy to have stumbled upon this interview! I guess I HAVE to check the rest out now too!

[@davidschilling132]

Fantastic interview. Wish there was more of it! I've been waiting for you to interview Donald Knuth for years!

[@jacksnoeyink8153]

So great to hear this interview and recognize that Don Knuth is still as sharp and well-spoken as ever.

[@neeeeeeeemo]

Those were some great questions, you can tell even Knuth was impressed. Great job!

[@AdvancedMath]

Thanks. I have been waiting for a new podcast anxiously.

[@frankharr9466]

You find such INTERESTING people to talk to. Thank you.

[@andrewdunbar828]

The best Knuth interview I've ever heard! (But please recommend others you think are as good or better.)

[@danielbriggs991]

20:00 I was waiting for him to talk about his graphs of square root functions! It's so cool.

[@thomasmeslin8399]

Omg that was so good ❤ I love this man Don ❤❤

[@Ceelvain]

I don't usually listen to podcasts because they are too long. But this one with Donald Knuth, I couldn't pass.

[@kekohokko7213]

Nice interview. The Windows 95 screensaver video was a riot, by which I mean it was violent and chaotic.

[@paulf5351]

in the 1970s I spent a long time implementing the normalizing divide . I could shift over up to five leading zeroes after a subtract iteration. I made five bit slice shifter subtractor in s 244 two input nand gate array.

[@ArnimSommer]

So - does he sometimes spell his middle initial \Epsilon (because he can)?

[@ShaunCKennedyAuthor]

As a person of faith, I would love to hear more interviews with smart people of faith and how it has impacted their academic career. His comments about feeling like he had to defend himself saying that he's not one of the crack pots on Christian TV was very interesting.

[@butterball-z]

This seems like seeking confirmation for your beliefs, which I feel is the exact antithesis of faith.

[@ShaunCKennedyAuthor]

@@butterball-z In what way?

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

Protestants really discredited the christian intellectual tradition huh... On the channel capturing Christianity there's a couple of interviews with christian biologists and physicists. The channel "Thomistic institute" has a mini series onf Aquinas' fifth way by a friar that is also a physicist

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

@@butterball-z Faith means trust, the anthitesis of faith is distrust. Wanting to hear from academically successful people that put trust in the same people you put trust in is not a sign of distrust.

[@doctoreggman21]

@@butterball-z no, that’s ridiculous. Many people believe that one cannot be both a man of science and a man of faith, but clearly that’s not the case, because there are many smart men who are both

[@scottdrake5159]

This has been the most inspiring and revealing interview I've ever heard. By "revealing", I mean about life and the wider universe. Stunned. Thank you so much.

[@L13832]

Man I love your podcast just hoped they would be longer 2-3 hrs

[@peterfireflylund]

I'm so looking forward to hearing this tomorrow -- need to get some sleep first, sigh.

[@xl000]

I just ordered Knuth 4.b aka combinatorial algorithms vol 2

[@necropola]

I was already out of my mind after seeing who is on the podcast today! I adore this man.

[@RhapsodyAfternoon]

wonderful interview!

[@mellertid]

Hmm, on ChatGpt being better at writing than its training data... I recall a finding that a large number of estimates (how many peas in the jar style) make a quite good average, even if some guessed are terrible. This kind of effect doesn't always happen, but it does seem to in some cases. Early innoceent Twitter was understood as a flow of each message flawed and insignificant but with the emergent effect of insight (something like that), A common comment on at least some AI is that we really don't understand it fully. Something can, it seems, happen at a certain scale that isn't obvious beforehand, the philosophy of quantity vs quality is not settled. 🤔

[@Ceelvain]

This effect is known as the "wisdom of the crowd". Although, let's not forget the reinforcement from human feedbacks that participated in its training.

[@hunlem]

I was today years old when I learned Donald Knuth is from my hometown.

[@xyz.ijk.]

That was fantastic.

[@DrRChandra]

A lot of people want to pronounce the "g" in Kernighan too, which, if I understand correctly, it's silent. (as in, the coauthor of The C Programming Language)

[@keevee09]

Don is a diamond gem.

[@f5673-t1h]

WHEN ARE YOU FINISHING TAOCP, KNUTH?

[@bazsnell3178]

He finished it many years ago. For those baffled, TAOCP refers to his magnum opus, The Art Of Computer Programming.

[@peterfireflylund]

@@bazsnell3178He is still not done with volume 4! He has published 4A and 4B but he plans to also publish 4C, 4D, 4E, and 4F... and volume 5 in 2030 :)

[@draido-dev]

@@peterfireflylund wrong, he clearly said in 4A that E & F "for sure" won't exist and even C & D weren't promised

[@fragglet]

Golden ratio base ("phinary") is an interesting number system he didn't mention

[@varunachar87]

Too busy tripping on the WordArt and retro Windows screensavers to pay attention to the conversation.

[@persistenthomology]

Thank you

[@woobilicious.]

Thanks Don for giving us the love-to-hate Tex language lol.

[@DitDede]

Surreal numbers 😊

[@morkmon]

what a legend

[@doctoreggman21]

Ah yes, the inventor of the arrow notation.

[@thenoobalmighty8790]

Arrow notation???

[@curtiswfranks]

​@@thenoobalmighty8790: Such as n ↑↑ m = n^(n^( … ^(n) …)), where there are m "n"s.

[@mellertid]

​​@@thenoobalmighty8790Numberphile covers it in some Grahams' number videos! 👍

[@R3cce]

@@mellertid Up arrows is actually not enough to describe how big TREE(3) really is.

[@mellertid]

@@R3cce How cool is that! I'll put it in my random facts drawer 😎

[@leobrouk]

The video part is a complete waste of traffic. Please use static images instead.

[@Mik1604]

Funny how he is drawn to the absolute certainty you get in math and computer science, while also holding strong religious beliefs.

[@zathrasyes1287]

It's natural to be religious, when beeing strong in math and science.

[@TesterAnimal1]

A hero of mine. His algorithms book was on my desk a lot when I worked on compilers and run times.

[@milanmasat8248]

I am not sure that I am the only one, but the old win screensaver (labyrinth) is making me sick. Literally, it triggers my motion sickness. If there is more people like that, can you avoid it in future posts, please?

[@nnm35]

Agree, I've had to stop watching. Why ????

[@MotoLen51]

The faith part just killed me.

[@robertolson7304]

I love how old people think. Today i can not trust what people say. New people say one thing but mean another all the time. Its like a sickness or something..

[@elago98]

Hope you didn't have a streak of toothpaste on your face this time Brady

[@thomasmeslin8399]

Omg Donald Knuth

[@Mj323_bb]

As always, I love the content .. but the video background on this one triggers my "bad/dangerous video" reflex, and I am only moderately sensitive to such problems, so I'd request that you change it. Sorry to have to report that

[@finlayson]

The video really doesn't add anything to this; it's really just an audio interview. I suggest listening to the (audio) podcast instead

[@nazrat3747]

What do you mean by bad/dangerous and how did you develop this reflex?

[@travisporco]

wow

[@loislane5092]

Strange world. Here I am sitting, working on a ca. 500 page critical edition of 18th century German manuscripts for a publisher, using TeX to do so, and listening to Donald Knuth on the internet. Full circle. Btw, TeX is not only for math books or physical science papers. It would be such a shame and a waste to reduce it to that, as is often done. ETA: Apropos ChatGpt, I posed it a slightly advanced TeX/LaTeX problem once, just out of curiosity, and it failed miserably. No matter how I worded the problem, the code it returned was always utter nonsense.

[@highlewelt9471]

First

[@YuTv1408]

Godfather???... never heard if him. ... You Mean Alan Turing...not this old geezer... ridiculous podcast

[@manuelg758]

Google TeX or LaTeX

[@MrMctastics]

Turing is better because he was never an old geezer?

[@francisvaughan7460]

If you have never heard of him, you know squat about computer science. Godfather is a very apt name. Turing, Babbage, Von Neumann, all made important contributions in the genesis of computers. But Don is a one off who casts a long shadow.

[@drink__more__water]

KNUTH?! nice