Donald Knut about his happy life, his death and the last two projects

"I realized that I was ready to die as soon as I finished the book."



I'm still working on “The Art of Programming,” but I took the time to work on two major projects. I worked on one in the late 80s, and on the other in the early 90s. These were monographs.
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The first project was called Axioms and Shells, I was studying interesting problems in geometry — convex geometry — and I continued to work on it while I was in Singapore, releasing “3:16”. It was a small book, about 100 pages.

Then I began to study random graphs - an amazing phenomenon, when something like the Big Bang happens: start with points that are not connected by anything, then select 2 random points and connect them, and so on; As soon as you transfer the number of connections, about half of the dots, suddenly, almost all the dots are always connected. This is called the " giant component ."

Publication support is Edison , which has developed a system for calculating road traffic at intersections and an application for the exchange of taxi orders .

Two final major research projects (83/97)

I studied this problem with Boris Pittel, who visited me in the late 80s, and we got some preliminary results that are interesting from a mathematical point of view. I wrote an article and realized that even more results can be obtained from these experiments: the more in-depth I studied this topic, the more interesting the system appeared. And everything turned out to be so ... this system has evolved into what I began to study not only the giant component, but wrote a research article, a huge article. She occupied a whole magazine.



I also had three co-authors: Boris Pittel, whom I already mentioned, Svante Janson and Thomas Lucak from Poland. We all continued to find more facts, and pushed each other to the next step in exploring this phenomenon. And it was like writing two doctoral dissertations at the end of my career, two monographs, one on the topic "Axioms and shells", and the other about a giant component. It was my swan song, after which I said: “Well, well, I have already done a lot here, and I will leave all other topics to other people, unless I can solve the problem in a day. Or in an hour. ”

But sometimes after an hour of work, I realize that maybe in an hour I will be able to solve the problem. And so, now, if I don’t know how to solve a new problem, I pass it on to someone else, saying, “don’t you think this is a cool thing?”, And just let you have fun with the solution of the problem.


Axioms and Hulls


The birth of the giant

Lucky life and writing (84/97)

As you understand from my story, I am passionate about writing books. I like sharing ideas with other people. I think that the books I wrote are about those amazing things that are too good not to share them, and I wanted other people to share my joy when reading books. And it just so happened that I now have more than 20 published books, and this is so much that I doubt whether there is anyone in the world who would read more than half.

And sometimes I think it would be terrible if there were 10 people on earth like me, because we simply did not have time to read each other’s books. And still I ... you know, behind every written book, there is a story, behind every written article.

I do not understand this “publish or die”, because I never wrote all these articles just because I needed it for a career or something. I wrote because I wanted to, you know, I thought it was a great idea that others should learn. One guy asked me two or three weeks ago, he was doing a project for the school, he had to shoot a video with several people whom he barely knew and ask them the following question: “If you could change only one thing in your life and make Any other, what would you choose? "

And, you know, I have never been asked such a question, and after 5 minutes of reflection, I gave up. I mean, yes, maybe I’m becoming forgetful with age, but I couldn’t think about any moment in my life I would regret. I'm just too lucky, I was constantly on the crest of a wave. I mean, I was born at the right time, computers just started to appear, and I had the skills that helped me get used to computers, write programs. And if I was born 10 years earlier or 10 years later, then everything would be different.

I started working with computers when they only started to appear, and the problems were much simpler. I could easily solve them. We had the easiest, but now we have to solve those that remain - the most difficult - or look at problems from completely different angles, they are, of course, very exciting, for example, robotics and other areas that were open because fundamental The most simple problems gave a new level of discoveries, unresolved issues. But I can’t even imagine that I could be even happier or, although many of the things I have been doing throughout my life were not popular, I just can’t think of anything that I would like to do differently. So it was very difficult for me to answer the question of that guy.

Coping with cancer (85/97)

Last year, I found out that I have cancer and, fortunately, it turned out at an early stage, so it won’t stop me from writing The Art of Programming. But at the end of last year I did not know how bad everything was. I just want to tell a little about it, because it can happen to everyone ... everyone dies sooner or later, but we never know what exactly will happen and everyone will have to face such a situation someday.

I just want to share how it affected me last year. I understand that I am now at that age when I have to attend the funeral of people I knew well, for example, my colleague Bob Floyd died a couple of years ago and I, you know, then thought about how to cope with death. After all, this is inevitable, and I realized that I was ready to die as soon as I finished the book, but not a week earlier. It would be terrible if I could not finish the project. And then, when I finished the book, that's all, I again reconciled with this thought.

After my father died in the 70s, I first encountered this and had to decide how I should relate to death. I remember that it took me about a month before I could not think about death again literally every hour and stop asking questions. I thought a lot about it at that time, and it helped me to get used to this thought. And now, I know many cases when someone dies, and we say: “Oh, how is that?”, But this is a good end, because a week ago they could meet with their children or friends, put things in order, and, well, they had time to sum up, and everything was so good that one could only dream of such.

The reason I'm talking about this is prostate cancer, which I was diagnosed with last year, and the operation was scheduled for December. At the same time, I was invited to give an important report at a conference in Europe devoted to the 150th anniversary of the formation of the Swiss Higher Technical School in Zurich, this is like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but in Europe. And I was the keynote speaker, and all the reporters interviewed, etc., I, of course, I did not say anything about the upcoming operation, and, you know, the performance went well, everyone was passionate about what I was and I had there were no enemies, I was on top.

Even if I died then in December during that operation, it would be that happy ending I knew from others. Moreover, several essays were written on my presentation, in Zurich I received an honorary doctorate, it was already 31, even more than Ronald Reagan, well, of course, still not as much as Bob Hope, but for Such a direction as programming is incredible.

I achieved everything I dreamed about, but did not finish “The Art of Programming”. And then, after Switzerland, I flew back, spent a week with children and grandchildren, we, you know, had a wonderful time together, and even if I died then, that would also be the perfect end. I looked at it like, “I had a full life, and if I die during the operation, then all right, it’s just going to be a little unexpected, but not something that makes you feel upset; and if everything goes well, it means that I will have another chance to do something useful, but this is more likely to be a gift, and you should not take it for granted. ” Do you understand what I mean?

And I'm not just talking about it now, I really thought so then. When I was in the hospital, I didn’t think about what I would do when I got home, I thought, “Well, if I get home, then I’ll think about things.” And I was in the operating room for 4 or 5 hours, unconscious, and then suddenly I heard happy voices and people who said that everything went well. "So, wonderful, I'm still alive, and maybe I can move a little more."

It’s not so easy to recover from surgery, but everything went well, and here I am. Next month I will also begin radiotherapy as a precaution, but the prognosis is pretty good. Every day, when I feel good, I take it as a gift that allows me to do what I can do - collect all the facts related to computers and write a book that people who are far from science could understand.

Read more

• Donald Knut: I sat in the back row and hunted jokes, and the teachers resigned and didn't often beat on the ass (1,2,3,7 / 97)
  
• Donald Knut: “My advice to the young” (93/97) and “Feeling the need to assert oneself” (9/97)
  
• Surreal Numbers: I worked for six days, and rested on the seventh (40,41,42 / 97)
  
• Donald Knut: How the “Art of Programming” was created (33,38,39 / 97)
  
• Donald Knut: about his wife, kisses, "Concrete math" and a look at teaching at the university
• Donald Knut: When will the fourth volume finally come out?
• Donald Knut: How I spent the summer with the computer, not with the girls (19,20,21,22 / 97)
• Donald Knut: about the assembler, the translator and competent programming