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Knuth (Donald E.) papers
SC0097
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Donald E. Knuth papers
Identifier/Call Number: SC0097
Physical Description:
41.25 Linear Feet
Physical Description:
4.3 gigabyte(s)
email files
Date (inclusive): 1962-2018
Summary: Papers reflect his
work in the study and teaching of computer programming, computer systems for publishing, and
mathematics. Included are correspondence, notes, manuscripts, computer printouts, logbooks,
proofs, and galleys pertaining to the computer systems TeX, METAFONT, and Computer Modern;
and to his books THE ART OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, COMPUTERS & TYPESETTING, CONCRETE
MATHEMATICS, THE STANFORD GRAPHBASE, DIGITAL TYPOGRAPHY, SELECTED PAPERS ON ANALYSIS OF
ALGORITHMS, MMIXWARE : A RISC COMPUTER FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM, and THINGS A COMPUTER
SCIENTIST RARELY TALKS ABOUT.
Physical Location: Special Collections and University
Archives materials are stored offsite and must be paged 36-48 hours in advance. For more
information on paging collections, see the department's website:
http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html.
Language of Material:
English .
Immediate Source of Acquisition note
Gift of Donald Knuth, 1972, 1980, 1983, 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2014, 2015, 2019.
This collection is open for research.
The full text version of the email contained in this collection is available in the Field
Reading Room; a redacted version, displaying correspondents and extracted entities (personal
and corporate names and locations) from Knuth's email have been published in Stanford's
online discovery module: http://epadd.stanford.edu/epadd/collections. 515 messages have been
entirely restricted from both the discovery module and the full text version available in
the reading room according to federal and state guidelines, and Stanford Libraries policy,
for up to 80 years. These messages may contain financial, medical, legal, and other
sensitive information. They will be made available in 2099.
Literary rights reside with Donald Knuth.
Donald E. Knuth Papers (SC0097). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
The materials are arranged in three series and subsequent accessions: Series 1. The Art of
Computer Programming; Series 2. Computers and Typesetting; Series 3. Concrete
Mathematics.
Biographical/Historical Sketch
Donald Ervin Knuth's work established the analysis of algorithms as an academic field. He
contributed to the development of the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of
algorithms and systematized formal mathematical techniques for it. In the process he also
popularized the 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.
As a writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed
to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MIX/MMIX instruction set
architectures.
Professor of computer science at Stanford University from 1968-1992, Knuth was born in
January 10, 1938 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received a B.S. from Case Institute of
Technology in 1960 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1963. That
same year he began to work on
The Art of Computer
Programming
. He had initially accepted a commission to write a book on compilers
which would later become the multi-volume
The Art of Computer
Programming
. Originally planned to be a single book, and then planned as a six-
and then seven-volume series. In 1968, he published the first volume.
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 (especially those
that provided input to phototypesetters) that he took time out to work on typesetting and
created the TeX and METAFONT tools. At the TUG 2010 Conference, Knuth announced an XML-based
successor to TeX, titled "iTeX", which would support features such as arbitrarily scaled
irrational units, 3D printing, animation, and stereographic sound.
Knuth has won numerous awards for his work, including:
First ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, 1971 Turing Award, 1974 National Medal of Science,
1979 Franklin Medal, 1988 John von Neumann Medal, 1995 Harvey Prize from the Technion, 1995
Kyoto Prize, 1996 Katayanagi Prize, 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, 2010
Stanford University School of Engineering Hero Award, 2011
He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975. In 1992, he became an associate
of the French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and
teaching at Stanford University in order to finish
The Art of
Computer Programming
. In 2003, he was elected as a foreign member of the Royal
Society. Knuth was elected as a Fellow (first class of Fellows) of the Society for
Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to mathematics.
He is also a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
On June 24, 1961 he married Nancy June Carter (b. July 15, 1939). They have two children:
John Martin (b. July 21, 1965) and Jennifer Sierra (b. December 12, 1966).
Papers reflect his work in the study and teaching of computer programming, computer systems
for publishing, and mathematics. Included are correspondence, notes, manuscripts, computer
printouts, logbooks, proofs, and galleys pertaining to the computer systems TeX, METAFONT,
and Computer Modern; and to his books
THE ART OF COMPUTER
PROGRAMMING
,
COMPUTERS & TYPESETTING,
CONCRETE MATHEMATICS,
THE STANFORD
GRAPHBASE
,
DIGITAL TYPOGRAPHY,
SELECTED PAPERS ON ANALYSIS OF ALGORITHMS,
MMIXWARE : A RISC COMPUTER FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM, and
THINGS A COMPUTER SCIENTIST RARELY TALKS ABOUT.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Computer programs.
Computer science.
Computer scientists.
TeX (Computer system).
College teachers.
METAFONT (Computer system).
Computerized typesetting.