Donald Knuth

Donald Knuth: Computer Science Author

Introduction

Donald Ervin Knuth (born January 10, 1938) is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University. Author of the seminal multi-volume work, The Art of Computer Programming , Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms, contributing to the development of, and systematizing formal mathematical techniques for, the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms, and in the process popularizing asymptotic notation.

In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces. A writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MMIX instruction set architecture.

Knuth was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his father owned a small printing business and taught bookkeeping at Milwaukee Lutheran High School, which he attended. He was an excellent student, earning achievement awards. He applied his intelligence in unconventional ways, winning a contest when he was in eighth grade by finding over 4,500 words that could be formed from the letters in "Ziegler's Giant Bar." This won him a television set for his school and a candy bar for everyone in his class.

In 1971, Knuth was the recipient of the first ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He has received various other awards including the Turing Award, the National Medal of Science, the John von Neumann Medal and the Kyoto Prize. After producing the third volume of his series in 1976, he expressed such frustration with the nascent state of the then newly developed electronic publishing tools (esp. those which provided input to phototypesetters) that he took time out to work on typesetting and created the TeX and METAFONT tools.

Books

• Concrete Mathematics


• The Stanford GraphBase: A Platform for Combinatorial Computing


• MMIXware: A RISC Computer for the Third Millennium


• The Art of Computer Programming


• Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms


• Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms


• Volume 3: Sorting and Searching


• Volume 4: Combinatorial Algorithms


• Literate Programming


• Selected Papers on Computer Science


• Digital Typography


• Selected Papers on Analysis of Algorithms


• Selected Papers on Computer Languages


• Selected Papers on Discrete Mathematics


• Computers & Typesetting


• Volume A: The TeXbook


• Volume B: TeX: The Program


• Volume C: The METAFONTbook


• Volume D: METAFONT: The Program


• Volume E: Computer Modern Typefaces


• Surreal Numbers


• Mathematical Writing


• Mathematics for the Analysis of Algorithms


• Mariages Stables


• Axioms and Hulls


• 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated


• Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About




links


http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/taocp.html


http://cs.stanford.edu




http://awards.acm.org/homepage.cfm?awd=140




http://awards.acm.org/hopper




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Authors: Keron Marrow




Last Updated: March 30, 2010

Werner Syndrome

Werner Syndrome or WS is also known Adult progeria and is a very rare autosomal recessive disorder, that comes from a mutation in the WRN gene. Its presence is indicated by premature aging. WS affects on average 1 out of 200,000 people in the U.S

Symptoms:

People with Warner Syndrome, don't start showing symptoms of the disorder until they reach puberty; after puberty, thats when rapid aging begins, and by the time theyre well into their adult years ( 30's-40's) they appear to be in their 60's or 70's. Another symptom of WS is the lack of a teenage growth spurt, which results in a short stature or posture. Other symptoms that occur later on are loss of hair or graying of the hair, hoarseness of the voice and cataracts in both eyes. People with WS are also affected by other diseases such as Cancer, heart disease, atherosclerosis and diabetes mellitus.

Genetics:

Warner Syndrome is located on chromosome 8 in humans and is a chromosome number disorder.

Warner Syndrome can be inherited by both the father and the mother because both parents carry a recessive gene for the disorder, but they are only carriers of the disease because they do not possess two recessive genes of the disorder.

The disorder becomes evident probaly in the early 20's and late 30's. WS cannot be detected before birth because you can't get a DNA sample from the baby while its in the wound and because the disease does'nt "activate" until puberty or late 20's. The parents can be tested to see whether theyre carriers or not, by having a simple DNA test administered to determine whether they carry a copy of the recessive gene. If both parents carry a mutated WRN recessive gene, Then one of their children will have Werner Syndrome.

Enviroment:

The enviroment can be altered in a way to help a person with WS because they usually suffer from other diseases as well, but there is nothing that can really slow it down because the average person with WS lives to be most 48-50 years old. There was a lab experiment published (2010) on mice that when introduced to Vitamin C, it restored them back to normal and lifespan increased;after Vitamin C was put into their drinkin water. The experiment has not been tested on humans or has not been confirmed yet.

http://www.ellisonfoundation.org/pfbs.jsp?p=50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZWo6-jI-Y8

Ways to detect extrasolar planets

Scientist can detect extra solar planets by direct evidence such as images of the planet and the planets spectrum, and by indirect evidence such as Doppler techniques and transits.

What did the universe look like before the Big Bang?

Before the big bang, i think the universe was probably a vast wasteland of nothing but large quantities of cosmic dust and other materials that would later come to serve as fuel/materials for the creation of the universe. I also think that there were forces or laws of the universe that contributed to the motion or attraction of objects in space billions of years ago.



The big bang formed because all of the matter, dust, foreign objects and elements collected into a single mass; which probably gave way to the extreme amount of weight/gravity of the huge mass; then a sudden, catastrophic explosion and sharing or splitting of matter and anti matter or nuclear reactions from atoms sent cosmic debris all over space; which later formed, cooled and created the cycles, stars, galaxies and objects that we view today.

My Favorite Science topic is...

My favorite topic, that we've went over this year was Astronomy; which is the study of the universe or space. Astronomy covers a lot of things in space, such as Black holes, Red giants, galaxies, constellations and theory's of how the universe formed or how it will end.

Astronomy is so interesting and cool to me because its vast size and gorgeous views. Astronmy is like watching still pictures or sometimes videos of 1080p HD pics on the best tv brand, flatscreens. It is truly a sight to admire.

5 things about/in the universe

1. The first thing I want to talk about is Saturn's moon Titan, which scientist have already sent the Cassini probe to investigate the moons surface, atmosphere, and composition. The data they received back was phenomenal and unbelievable. They discovered geographic regions very similar to earth such as streams, rivers, mountains and lakes. The surprising thing about these features is that they are not made up of water but liquid nitrogen. Titan's atmosphere also rains liquid nitrogen.





2. The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, it has about 1 trillion stars in it. It is not the closest galaxy though and is apart of our galaxy cluster. It has a couple of red giants in it.





3. Binary star systems, are solar systems that have two stars that affect the planets and other celestrial body's in the solar systems. The larger star is called the primary star and the smaller of the two or more is called the companion.



4.The Asteroid belt is located between Mars and Jupiter, where the majority of our solar system's asteroids are found. There 's more than one asteroid belt in our solar system: the Kuiper belt holds some of the largest asteroids including Quaoar and Ixion being about half the size of Pluto. Many Scientist believe that the asteroid belt is a remnant of a large collision of two planets.

5. The Hubble space telescope was carried into orbit by the space shuttle Discovery. Hubble was the first space telescope ever. It was put into space to provide better, more accurate pictures and measurements. It was successful at this because of the many factors that would've presented an obstacle on Earth are not in space, such as Earth's atmosphere, space dust

IR radiation

1. IR radiation means infrared radiation, which is the heat or thermal radiation from the Sun, that heats the Earth.

2. The three main greenhouse gases are Carbon dioxide, Argon and Water vapor.

3. I kind of think its both a good and a bad, but I'm going to favor bad a little more because with the increase of greenhouse gases; the temperature will also increase globally. This is bad because it causes the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic to melt at fast rates, which will endanger animal species that live in polar regions. Alot of places will receive either less snow or no snow as we're experiencing now.Greenhouse gases also destroy the ozone layer which is very important in blocking out the Sun's UV rays. Thats why i think greenhouse gases are bad.