How Donald Knut went to school and went to university

What was Knut's first publication, how obedient he was at school, and why he loved music more than mathematics.



I graduated from Lutheran High School in Milokau (Milwaukee Lutheran High School,) in 1956. We didn’t have “world scale” teachers, but all of them were interested in our education.
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After that, I continued my studies in mathematics, although she was not very interested in me at school, because when I tried to ask the teacher, he did not know the answer. I could solve something wrong and the teacher did not notice the error. So why did I have to go to mathematics? Moreover, at that time I loved music and physics more. My physics and chemistry teacher was a great man who wrote his own book. He himself developed the course of experiments in chemistry thereby admiring me. He also interested me in physics, despite the fact that I devoted most of my free time to music.

Publishing support - Edison company, which develops a billing system for providers , as well as develops software for tax reporting over the Internet .

Interests in high school (5/97)

I played the piano well, sang in the choir and was even in a group. In a band called the Milwaukee All - City Band (or simply the Symphony Band), I played the saxophone and the trumpet. I wrote and arranged music for other bands.

At that time, I loved reading Mad Magazine and Roger Price, who also wrote Milton and Rhino. Having decided to create a caricature of "Milton and the Rhinoceros," I created "Peter Prokofiev and the Wolf." At that time I did not know about copyright, and in general I did not understand this. So, I took the words from the work “Milton and Rhinoceros”, put on music and got this twenty-minute “something” to perform at school. I gave “this” to the director who lost my work, and I never saw him again. So I can not say whether it was something good or not, but it was.

How I was a nerd in high school (6/97)

In high school, I founded my own newspaper. I was the editor-in-chief and during my last year I often sat on Monday night, finishing the newspaper until 7 in the morning. We also didn’t have professional printing equipment, so we used a stencil machine. It was outdated, used oily ink, but the reason why I used it is simple: one of these machines was in my house. My father worked as an architect, printing drawings on it, and made music for local choirs. We also had an electronic typewriter, so I could type texts at home. Many reporters worked with my newspaper and, moreover, I created various crosswords, riddles and the like.

So, I was closely associated with writing activities in high school. I worked with Yearbook and other publications. My friends and I wrote different plays for different circles at school. It was a fun time. But at the same time, I was like a car. I studied, absorbed knowledge, wrote tests 100%, not relaxing and not thinking about really important things in life.

I was a very obedient child, I was told to go to school, I went to school, I was told to study, I studied. I enjoyed writing some projects, but, for example, I did not read, unless I was told to read a certain book. However, sometimes I read what I find interesting, although, as I recall, I was a very slow reader. I remember how I decided to read The Dark House by Charles Dickens. There were about 60 chapters, but I read it for so long that I had to write two reports, instead of one, and I never finished reading it. In general, I reached good literature, which I would read with pleasure, only by the age of thirty.

In high school, I was pretty successful "machine." At that time, grades were given on a 100-point scale, summarizing homework and exams. My average score was 97.5, I set a new school record. So you can call me a nerd at the time.

The necessary system of weights and measures (8/97)

As I mentioned, in the last school year, working in Mad Magazine, I worked on a project that was presented to the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences (Wisconsin Academy of Sciences) and Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now Intel Science Talent Search), and was called "The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures". Potrzebie (Polish. "Need") is quite a popular word in Mad Magazine and I decided to develop a system that would be better metric. It was based on the thickness of Mad Magazine # 26, which equated to 1 "potrzebie of length". 1 "kilo potrzebie of length" was equal to thousands of magazines, and 1 "fershlugginer potrzebie" was equal to millions of magazines. We had units of time, weight, all that is in the usual metric system, and she received encouragement in Science Talent Search, and also received an award in Wisconsin from the Academy of Sciences. Later Mad Magazine published it, paying me $ 25. This was my first technical publication, which is why it is listed in my biography as publication number 1. Later it was published in the Mad Magazine reprint and I used it as the basis for the work of student government in college. And she failed miserably, because I was not elected.

I also sent a sequel to Mad Magazine in crossword format. The idea to create such a crossword was given to me by the image of Alfred E. Newman, a stupid boy with a missing tooth. And when I looked at his teeth, they seemed to me like black and white squares, resembling a crossword puzzle. And I created my crossword with a special slang, typical of Mad Magazine. But they did not publish it, although I still have a copy of it. Later we decided to create “Selected Papers on Fun and Games”, where not only “The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures” was reprinted, but also all that Mad Magazine refused to print so that the readers themselves could decide whether they liked this material. , or not. So yes, I like to look at things as non-standard, as well as ordinary.

Why I chose the Technological Institute Case (10/97)



As I said, in high school, math was pretty confusing to me. When I went to Case (the slang name of Case Institute of Technology), I met a mathematics teacher who also understood physics and chemistry, which caused me great respect. He was really smart, and he was quite difficult to please. He was never impressed with my calculations and it upset me. I have never met a teacher whom I could not impress, so I began to study mathematics much more diligently. However, he had a good sense of humor. By the way, his name was Paul Gunter. After two years of study, I was able to impress him, which made me very happy, but the main thing is that I became interested in mathematics. However, I think I need to go back a little.

When choosing a college, I went for several scholarships. One of them belonged to the University of Valparaiso in Indiana (Valparaiso University in Indiana), associated with the Lutheran Church (Lutheran Church), profiled in music. The other scholarship belonged to the Case University in Cleveland with an emphasis on physics. My mother's family was from Cleveland, and she said that this University had high standards and few of her friends were allowed to study there. I understood that studying there would be a real test for me, where I would have to study hard, while at Valparaiso University in Indiana I would study music, which is much simpler. And I decided to challenge myself and go to Case. In Case, there was a special group for freshmen, called the Honors Group, in which the rectors of the faculties taught, so that we had the best teachers in physics, chemistry, mathematics and English.

About the life of Knut in the university in the next article.

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
• Donald Knuth: about Richard Feynman, awards and algorithm of the ILC
• Donald Knut about his happy life, his death and the last two projects