I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00 • Hacker News Board

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#41

Post by nickdrozd » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #9

”In 1960, Karatsuba attended a seminar wherein Kolmogorov pitched his n2 conjecture. 3) “Exactly within a week” Karatsuba devised his divide-and-conquer algorithm. […] Thus the error is that 1962 should be 1960.” Based on the information given, the correct year _could_ be 1961, too. When, exactly, was that seminar? Were Soviet universities at the time closed over Christmas?

Apparently the seminar was held "in the autumn of 1960" [1], so "within a week" seems safely within 1960. That said, I will happily award 0x$0.50 to anyone who can come up with conclusive proof that the algorithm was discovered in 1961. Karatsuba himself is dead though, so such evidence will not be easy to find.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258001835_The_compl...

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#42

Post by so33 » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

nsomaru wrote: post #8

Slightly OT, but this whole article is about nitpicks so I don’t feel guilty... Shouldn’t the dollar sign be before the 0x?

The check is issued by the “Bank of San Serriffe” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Serriffe). Perhaps they have different typographical conventions...

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#43

Post by Leace » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

edge17 wrote: post #38

hackermailman wrote: post #24

Any published authors here? I once went through a cheaper international edition of a large computer science text, and built a massive errata of all the mistakes (primarily found in the exercises) then submitted it to the authors who basically told me 'Thanks but we don't give a shit about that version, only the US edition'. Any reason there would be that many mistakes in the international version? Does Pearson publis…

International Editions differ often in the problems at the ends of the chapters in order to protect US and other western markets. Differences in the problems means it discourages students from buying things that may lead to incorrect answers to assigned problem sets. As for things just being flat out wrong, I can only imagine this discourages US/western students from buying International Editions to save money.

> International Editions differ often in the problems at the ends of the chapters in order to protect US and other western markets.

Protect in what way? By not disclosing secret problems based on US-centric data?

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#44

Post by hackermailman » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #35

hackermailman wrote: post #24

Any published authors here? I once went through a cheaper international edition of a large computer science text, and built a massive errata of all the mistakes (primarily found in the exercises) then submitted it to the authors who basically told me 'Thanks but we don't give a shit about that version, only the US edition'. Any reason there would be that many mistakes in the international version? Does Pearson publis…

I’m sorry you got such a shitty reply to what must have been a lot of hard work. Did you try to contact the Malaysian professors? Regardless, thank you for the warning about international editions.

I probably should have contacted them. The completely untrustworthy answers/exercises turned out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise as I ended up really learning the material being that I had to figure out everything myself and carefully step through exercises to find the error. However I had luxury of free time to do so and wasn't panicking under pressure of a class schedule and this text is used for a lot of undergrad courses.

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#45

Post by ehsankia » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

anderspitman wrote: post #26

Interesting. I have a 1973 (1st edition?) copy of Sorting and Searching I picked up at a book sale a couple years ago. In that version chapter 6 starts on page 389, and the typo is not there. I guess it was introduced later.

I'm curious, unlike the other two, wouldn't that typo be caught by any sort of automatic grammar checker? Couldn't anyone looking for a Knuth Check just load the text into a decent checker and go through the suggestions to find a valid one?

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#46

Post by hackermailman » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

Leace wrote: post #43

edge17 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International Editions differ often in the problems at the ends of the chapters in order to protect US and other western markets. Differences in the problems means it discourages students from buying things that may lead to incorrect answers to assigned problem sets. As for things just being flat out wrong, I can only imagine this discourages US/western students from buying International Editions to save money.

> International Editions differ often in the problems at the ends of the chapters in order to protect US and other western markets. Protect in what way? By not disclosing secret problems based on US-centric data?

I believe edge17 means changing the exercises for the cheaper global edition, so students in western markets are forced to buy the expensive version as they may be assigned these end of chapter problem sets.

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#47

Post by nickdrozd » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

anderspitman wrote: post #26

Interesting. I have a 1973 (1st edition?) copy of Sorting and Searching I picked up at a book sale a couple years ago. In that version chapter 6 starts on page 389, and the typo is not there. I guess it was introduced later.

I can't remember where I read this, but I think the first edition of Volume 3 was the last one to be published before the creation of TeX, and so the second edition had to substantially reworked. The typo was probably introduced at that time.

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#48

Post by Tomte » Sat, May 18, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #15

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html Someone found and submitted 700+ errors. I wonder where he finds the time to send all of these out! I guess it’s like an open source project getting PRs.

Some German guy has actually been cashing a Knuth cheque every year. Cashing! A Knuth cheque! That's decadent.

(Source: a Knuth interview that's probably easy to find, but I don't have the URL at hand)

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#49

Post by nickdrozd » Sat, May 18, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

raister wrote: post #6

I came here expecting to find some sort of problems on mathematical proofs, since he was quote saying "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." and I got out disapointed for two human mistakes and one minor historical hiccup.

Tuh, you and me both. Then again, it's been said that "technically correct" is "the best kind of correct".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hou0lU8WMgo

Re: I Got a Knuth Check for 0x$3.00

#50

Post by edge17 » Sat, May 18, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

hackermailman wrote: post #46

Leace wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> International Editions differ often in the problems at the ends of the chapters in order to protect US and other western markets. Protect in what way? By not disclosing secret problems based on US-centric data?

I believe edge17 means changing the exercises for the cheaper global edition, so students in western markets are forced to buy the expensive version as they may be assigned these end of chapter problem sets.

Yup, protecting in that the majority of the revenue for the publishers comes from the western markets (US/Europe).

It's the same reason companies like Apple don't sell less expensive phones less affluent markets - if they did the price spread would create an opportunity for arbitrageurs. Google et al however, does create less expensive alternative versions of their products for other markets.