Editing Donald Knuth (section)

==Personal life==
Donald Knuth married Nancy Jill Carter on 24 June 1961, while he was a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. They have two children: John Martin Knuth and Jennifer Sierra Knuth.<ref name="OConnerEtRobertson">{{cite web |url=http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Knuth.html |title=Donald Ervin Knuth |publisher=[[University of St Andrews]] |first1=J. J. |last1=O'Connor |first2=E. F. |last2=Robertson |date=2015 |access-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005220701/http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Knuth.html |archive-date=October 5, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at [[Stanford University]], which he calls "Computer Musings". He was a visiting professor at the [[Oxford University Department of Computer Science]] in the United Kingdom until 2017 and an Honorary Fellow of [[Magdalen College, Oxford|Magdalen College]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Professor Donald Knuth |url=http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/whos-here/fellows-and-lecturers/fellows/knuthd |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110104142353/http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/whos-here/fellows-and-lecturers/fellows/knuthd |archive-date=January 4, 2011 |access-date=December 6, 2010 |publisher=Magdalen College |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=October 30, 2014 |title=Notices |url=https://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/2014-2015/30october2014-no5075/notices/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515081159/http://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/2014-2015/30october2014-no5075/notices/ |archive-date=May 15, 2015 |access-date=May 21, 2015 |work=[[Oxford University Gazette]]}}</ref>

Knuth is an [[organist]] and a [[composer]]. He and his father served as organists for Lutheran congregations. Knuth and his wife have a 16-rank organ in their home.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Organ of Don and Jill Knuth |url=https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html |access-date=11 January 2023 |via=Stanford.edu}}</ref> In 2016 he completed a piece for organ, ''Fantasia Apocalyptica'', which he calls a "translation of the Greek text of the [[Book of Revelation|Revelation of Saint John the Divine]] into music". It was premièred in [[Sweden]] on January 10, 2018.<ref>{{cite news |last=de Groot |first=Martin |date=November 3, 2018 |title=Arts and Culture: A polymath brings his genius to bear on a multimedia work for pipe organ |work=[[Waterloo Region Record]] |url=https://www.therecord.com/whatson-story/9003680-arts-and-culture-a-polymath-brings-his-genius-to-bear-on-a-multimedia-work-for-pipe-organ/}}</ref>

===Chinese name===
Knuth's [[Chinese name]] is [[Gao (surname)|Gao]] Dena ({{lang-zh|s=高德纳|t=高德納|p=Gāo Dénà}}).<ref>{{cite journal |issn=0896-3207 |journal=[[TUGboat]] |author-last=Reutenauer |author-first=Arthur |pages=68–72 |title=A brief history of TeX, volume II}}</ref><ref name="faq"/> He was [[Phono-semantic matching|given]] this name in 1977 by [[Frances Yao]] shortly before making a three-week trip to [[China]].<ref name="faq">{{cite web |url=https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html |title=Frequently Asked Questions |last=Knuth |first=Donald Ervin |work=Home page |publisher=[[Stanford University]] |access-date=2010-11-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190803223521/https://www.cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html |archive-date=August 3, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="The Art of Computer Programming"/> In the 1980 Chinese translation of Volume 1 of ''The Art of Computer Programming'' ({{lang-zh|s=计算机程序设计艺术|t=計算機程式設計藝術|p=Jìsuànjī chéngxù shèjì yìshù}}), Knuth explains that he embraced his Chinese name because he wanted to be known by the growing numbers of computer programmers in China at the time. In 1989, his Chinese name was placed atop the ''Journal of Computer Science and Technology''{{'s}} header, which Knuth says "makes me feel close to all Chinese people although I cannot speak your language".<ref name="The Art of Computer Programming">{{cite book |author-last=Knuth |author-first=Donald Ervin |trans-title=The Art of Computer Programming |translator1-last=Guan |translator1-first=JiWen |translator2-last=Su |translator2-first=Yunlin |title=计算机程序设计技巧 (Ji suan ji cheng xu she ji ji qiao) |publisher=Defense Industry Publishing Co. |date=1980 |location=Beijing |quote=I fondly hope that many Chinese computer programmers will learn to recognize my Chinese name Gao Dena, which was given to me by Francis Yao just before I visited your country in 1977. I still have very fond memories of that three-week visit, and I have been glad to see Gao Dena on the masthead of the ''Journal of Computer Science and Technology'' since 1989. This name makes me feel close to all Chinese people although I cannot speak your language.}}</ref>

===Humor===
[[File:knuth-check2.png|thumb|right|One of [[Knuth reward check|Knuth's reward checks]]]]
Knuth used to pay a [[finder's fee]] of $2.56 for any typographical errors or mistakes discovered in his books, because "256 pennies is one [[hexadecimal]] dollar", and $0.32 for "valuable suggestions". According to an article in the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]'s ''Technology Review'', these [[Knuth reward check]]s are "among computerdom's most prized trophies". Knuth had to stop sending real checks in 2008 due to bank fraud, and now gives each error finder a "certificate of deposit" from a publicly listed balance in his fictitious "Bank of [[San Serriffe]]".<ref>{{Cite journal |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/1999/09/01/236540/rewriting-the-bible-in-0s-and-1s/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220709180448/https://www.technologyreview.com/1999/09/01/236540/rewriting-the-bible-in-0s-and-1s/ |url-status=live |archive-date=2022-07-09 |title=Rewriting the Bible in 0s and 1s |journal=[[Technology Review]] }}</ref>

He once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."<ref name="faq"/>

Knuth published his first "scientific" article in a school magazine in 1957 under the title "The [[Potrzebie]] System of Weights and Measures". In it, he defined the [[fundamental unit]] of [[length]] as the thickness of ''[[Mad (magazine)|Mad]]'' No. 26, and named the fundamental unit of [[force]] "whatmeworry". ''Mad'' published the article in issue No. 33 (June 1957).<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Knuth |first=Donald Ervin |title=The Potrzebie System of Weights & Measures |url=https://www.madcoversite.com/mad033.html |magazine=Mad Magazine |date=June 1957 |issue=33 |access-date=March 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181106194253/https://madcoversite.com/mad033.html |archive-date=November 6, 2018 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="kidder">{{cite book |title=A Truck Full of Money |last=Kidder |first=Tracy |author-link=Tracy Kidder |publisher=[[Random House]] |page=68 |date=2016 |isbn=9780812995244}}</ref>

To demonstrate the concept of [[recursion]], Knuth intentionally referred "Circular definition" and "Definition, circular" to each other in the index of ''[[The Art of Computer Programming]], Volume 1''.

The preface of ''[[Concrete Mathematics]]'' has the following paragraph:{{blockquote|When DEK taught Concrete Mathematics at Stanford for the first time, he explained the somewhat strange title by saying that it was his attempt to teach a math course that was hard instead of soft.  He announced that, contrary to the expectations of his colleagues, he was ''not'' going to teach the Theory of Aggregates, nor [[Stone's representation theorem for Boolean algebras|Stone's Embedding Theorem]], nor even the [[Stone–Čech compactification]]. (Several students from the civil engineering department got up and quietly left the room.)}}

At the TUG 2010 Conference, Knuth announced a satirical [[XML]]-based successor to TeX, titled "iTeX" ({{IPA|en|iː˨˩˦tɛks˧˥⸨bell⸩|pron|generic=yes}}, spoken while ringing a bell), which would support features such as arbitrarily scaled irrational units, [[3D printing]], input from seismographs and heart monitors, animation, and stereophonic sound.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://river-valley.zeeba.tv/media/conferences/tug-2010/Don-Knuth/ | type=conference panel video|title=TUG 2010|year=2010 |first=Don |last=Knuth |publisher=Zeeba TV  |access-date=March 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325191535/http://river-valley.zeeba.tv/media/conferences/tug-2010/Don-Knuth/ |archive-date=March 25, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |type=video recording |last=Knuth |first=Donald Ervin |url=http://river-valley.zeeba.tv/an-earthshaking-announcement/ |publisher=Zeeba TV |title=An Earth-shaking announcement}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Knuth |first=Donald Ervin |year=2010 |journal=[[TUGboat]] |volume=31 |title=An Earthshaking Announcement |pages=121–24 |issue=2 |issn=0896-3207 |url=https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb31-2/tb98knut.pdf |access-date=March 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190413164834/http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb31-2/tb98knut.pdf |archive-date=April 13, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref>