Editing Donald Knuth (section)

=== ''The Art of Computer Programming'' (''TAOCP'') ===
{{main |The Art of Computer Programming}}
{{Blockquote
|text="The best way to communicate from one human being to another is through story."
|author=Donald Knuth<ref name="quanta_magazine"/>
}}

In the 1970s, Knuth called computer science "a totally new field with no real identity. And the standard of available publications was not that high. A lot of the papers coming out were quite simply wrong.&nbsp;... So one of my motivations was to put straight a story that had been very badly told."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fbbva.es/TLFU/tlfu/ing/microsites/premios/fronteras/galardonados/2010/informacion.jsp |title=BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards |access-date=October 15, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819042332/http://www.fbbva.es/TLFU/tlfu/ing/microsites/premios/fronteras/galardonados/2010/informacion.jsp |archive-date=August 19, 2016 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

From 1972 to 1973, Knuth spent a year at the [[University of Oslo]] among people such as [[Ole-Johan Dahl]]. This is where he had originally intended to write the seventh volume in his book series, which was to deal with programming languages. But Knuth had finished only the first two volumes when he came to Oslo, and thus spent the year on the third volume, next to teaching. The third volume came out just after Knuth returned to Stanford in 1973.<ref>{{Cite web|date=1997|title=Publikasjonen "Datahistorien ved Universitetet i Oslo - Institutt for informatikk 1977 - 1997" utgitt|language=Norwegian|trans-title=The publication "Computer history at the University of Oslo - Department of Informatics 1977 - 1997" published|url=https://ordenen.ifi.uio.no/history/1997-datahistorien-ved-universitetet-i-oslo-published/|url-status=live|access-date=29 April 2021|website=University of Oslo|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429185911/https://ordenen.ifi.uio.no/history/1997-datahistorien-ved-universitetet-i-oslo-published/ |archive-date=April 29, 2021 }}</ref>

''[[Concrete Mathematics|Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science]]'' originated with an expansion of the mathematical preliminaries section of Volume 1 of ''TAoCP''. Knuth found that there were mathematical tools necessary for Volume 1, but missing from his repertoire, and decided that a course introducing those tools to computer science students would be useful. Knuth introduced the course at Stanford in 1970. Course notes developed by [[Oren Patashnik]] evolved into the 1988 text, with authors [[Ronald Graham]], Knuth, and Patashnik. A second edition of ''Concrete Mathematics'' was published in 1994.

By 2011, Volume 4A of ''TAoCP'' had been published.<ref name="TAOCP" /> In April 2020, Knuth said he anticipated that Volume 4 of ''TAoCP'' will have at least parts A through F.<ref name="quanta_magazine" /> Volume 4B was published in October 2022.