Stanford Engineering Puzzle
September 2008
Don Knuth, the legendary computer science professor emeritus best known as the author of the monograph (and bible) The Art of Computer Programming, celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year. Sure, he's won all the top prizes in computing and is renowned the world over as the discipline's philosopher king, but now he can also say he's been the subject of a Stanford Engineering puzzle.
Truth from Knuth
The puzzle below, whose format was suggested by alumnus Mark Perkins (PhD1985 OR), invites you to decipher a scrambled quote of Knuth from an interview he granted to a journalist earlier this year. The quote has nothing to do with computing, by the way.
In solving the puzzle, it will be helpful to keep two things about Knuth in mind:
- 1) Despite his fame, he often exhibits great humility.
- 2) Although he is a computer scientist, he is not enamored with all technologies. He does not, for example, use e-mail.
Anyway, to show that you have successfully completed the puzzle, make sure to e-mail Marge Kastner with the fully deciphered quote. Have fun!
"Winning" entries
- 1) Laurent Lessard
- 2) Wade Powell
- 3) Paul Salm
- 4) George Mattinger
- 5) Danny Hsu
- 6) Javier Lozano
- 7) Jasna Ristic-Djurovic
- 8) Kai Yu
- 9) Jason Wolfe
- 10) Ed Wilson
- 11) Kevin Shen
- 12) Michael Moreland
- 13) Nick Baxter
- 14) Fred Hines
- 15) Scott Seligman
- 16) Steven Wierenga
- 17) Jeff Blohm
- 18) John Pigott
- 19) Mark Kahn
- 20) Randy Yee
- 30) David Havelin
- 40) Keith Gordon
- 50) Denis Baylor
- 60) Abha Chinubhao
- 70) Philip James
- 80) Jim Hartley
- 90) Michael Connors
- 100) David Bauman
- 110) Kenneth Arrow
- 120) Anand Rangarajan
- 130) Timothy Phillips
- 140) Daniel Gabay
- 150) Eric Schwartz
- 160) Rebecca Landless
- 170) Jason Fang
- 180) Jason Townsend
- 190) Mark Kinnaman
- 200) Ravi Upreti
Do you want to try your hand at past puzzles? Go to our Archive page.
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