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Knuth's 'Earthshaking Announcement' due tomorrow (stanford.edu)
149 points by dermatthias on June 29, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 92 comments



Using new features of TeX π, Knuth has inserted interrobangs along critical fault lines, and he intends to offset the entire West Coast, widening rivers and reflowing the Pacific; the Bay Area will be left flushed and right ragged, creating many widows and orphans. The only way to stem this bold, unjustified plot is to transfer a well-padded figure of $175,921,860,444.16 immediately to the Bank of San Serriffe.


Land: It's the only thing they're not making more of.


I know a few volcanoes who would beg to differ.


the lesson here is: Don't make jokes on the internet unless you've thoroughly researched the 'facts' of your 'joke'.


You have no idea how many jokes I've abandoned after realizing that they're scientifically inaccurate.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Islands


Oh the timeliness of wp: Interesting how many features of those Dubai items are still described as "will be completed in" ...2008 or ...2009.


Well, almost: http://bit.ly/bcaonj


Unfortunately, it appears to be just a lecture called "Earthshaking Announcement". The previous one was called "All Questions Answered" and I'm sure he left some questions unanswered.


I really think this is going to be one of the most overblown things ever. I seriously doubt it's actually going to be interesting at all. Really. He's being sarcastic with the title of a lecture. Calm down fanboys.


Nothing will ever trump 'it' aka the segway.


"Ginger" was a much better code name.


or Transmeta or Danger inc. if you were around in 2000.


or Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's vault live on television. Anyone here remember that?


Or Geraldo Rivera giving up the positions of the army unit he was embedded in.


or Duke Nukem Forever


I had it on my list to post a reminder of this today as well-- looks like you beat me to it.

I'm curious to see other's guesses here. My personal hunch is that he is going to declare TeX complete, and move the version number to Pi (as he had planned to do upon his death.)


Don't you mean tau/2?


Maybe he's declaring the project finished early so as to avoid the upcoming pi/tau bloodshed :-)


I gather you say that pi/tau jokingly.


You're tau/pi funny


Or a pi/tau wit.


Well... My old cd burner was a tau/pi. Does that count?

ObOntopic: it most lilkely is him declaring version pi.


Huh?


A tau/pi = atapi Just a bad joke.


He's announcing that he's retiring. He had some health issues in 2006 so I really hope it's not related to that. Of course his consciousness will be uploaded to a positronic brain so he'll be around for a while yet.


If he was actually retiring, he's not the kind of guy to call that an "Earthshaking announcement."

Incidentally, I went to his last Stanford lecture, the lecture hall with maybe ~400 seats was totally full, and there were exactly 3 women in the audience.


Back when it was first announced, everybody made jokes about the new TeX policy and every document made using TeX will have to be reviewed before publishing :)


He's quitting Stanford to work for Facebook|Google|Twitter.


How will this be earth-shattering?

Not trying to be a dick, just wondering if you have a point if you're not kidding.


Mostly joking, but it could be possible.

I just can't think of anything besides P=NP (or proving P!=NP) that Knuth is likely to announce that I'd consider earth-shattering.

In the end, it's likely to be a decent but not earth-shattering discovery. It better not be a TeX announcement.

If he walks out, says "42" and leaves, I'm selling my copies of "The Art of Computer Programming".


Dude, it's Knuth.

OTOH, maybe Twitter will continue their overengineering by porting everything to MMIX.


TeX <-> JSON <-> JavaScript translator?


TeX 4.0 will have Ribbons.


Tomorrow @ 5:30 PM PDT, to be more precise. http://tug.org/tug2010/program.html Given how many people on HN are interested in this, I'm curious to see how fast, and in what manner, the announcement gets posted here. Perhaps someone tweets it directly from the conference and the tweet gets posted here. I'm hoping for a post here by 6:00 PM.


We could just crash it, it's in Union Square (SF). :)


Maybe the numbering of TeX will now go up to 6 and something...


Yes, he is changing the numbering from pi to tau.


He converted to OpenOffice.


Will TeX somehow tie into eBooks?


Would put money on it being along these lines.


Any theories on what Knuth will announce?


Premature optimization is actually cool.


People stress out about random number generators too much.


P=NP


Clearly this would be an exciting announcement, but is Knuth even known to be working on the problem?


Only in his sleep.


Isn't every computer scientist supposed to work on P=NP in their sleep? Or maybe it's their lack of sleep.

I forget who it was that said it first, but one of my profs relayed it as serious advice: that every computer scientist should dable in P=NP in his early years, then go off and do something useful for a few decades, and come back to it to dable again.


Perhaps he did found a new bug in TeX and announce a new version?

It is rare enough to be called 'Earthshaking' but the probability is really thin.


I guess something TeX related, since it's at the TeX Users Group anniversary.


I'm not sure that's the best guess. While it would be the obvious choice, I don't think much could be said to be "earthshaking" there, and Knuth isn't one to throw out hyperboles. I think it will be something new, almost certainly in a different field, and it will involve looking at an unsolved problem in a way different than it's previously been approached from, much like TeX. I can't wait to see what he announces.


But then, it is not announced as an earthshaking announcement, but as an "earthshaking announcement." The quotes make it sufficiently vague that it could be anything from "there was a typo in a comment in the metafont source", to "Vol. 4 is off to the printer."


Vol 4 is off to the printer. He's already announced that the first 5 fascicles will be appearing in hardcover later this year.


I'm willing to bet that it is not. The words are in quote marks which suggests nothing majority earth shattering (on the wider stage).

Probably a big TeX thing, given the context.


It's titled "A Special Announcement!" in the TUG conference proceeding. I'd say the odds are pretty good that it's TeX-related.


He's solved the traveling salesman problem in Log(n) time.


"Pepsi tastes better than Coke"


That would be earth shattering because it is so not true.


He's figured out the optimum way to burn all his pirated mp3s to DVD.


A solution for the iPhone antenna problem.


    \blink{}


\marquee{ }


Does p = np or not?

That's what I hope we'll find out tomorrow. Too hopeful?


A tad too hopeful.


One can still dream!


I devised a proof for the very limited case where n=1 but there is not enough space left in this margin to write it out.


I've seen a bunch of companies/ people using this strategy lately. Making it appear like they're going to make a revolutionary statement that is going to change the world.

An "idea implemented." Unfortunately is rarely turns out to be something concrete - it's usually an idea with a significant buy in... But an idea that's a step in the right direction... A call to action...

Examples:

1) Cisco announced a really fast router that was going to "change the Internet forever." (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/09/what-cisco-lacks-in-s...)

2) Bloombox (http://bloomenergy.com)

Of course, as others have pointed out maybe he's just playing the fool.


Come on. You're really comparing a throwaway line in the "upcoming events" section of Knuth's blog to a Cisco press release?


I actually just thought it was an interesting discussion point for strategies like this; I also pointed out that he might be playing the fool.

Did not mean to garner offense.


No offense taken, but the point is, there's no "like these." You're comparing two very different things. Knuth's comment was aimed at piqueing the interest of the tiny fraction of people who might want to come see him at a TeX celebration-- which has absolutely nothing to do with hyperbole in marketing press releases.


Doesn't seem like Knuth's style.


> I've seen a bunch of companies/ people using this strategy lately. Making it appear like they're going to make a revolutionary statement that is going to change the world.

Valve at E3. Bastards.


3) Segway


47 minutes past the scheduled 5:30 pm, pacific announcement time. Earth still stable.


I'm pretty sure the announcement will be release dates of Volumes 4a, 4b, and 4c of "The Art of Computer Programming."


Not likely. The release date for 4A, sure-- that's scheduled for later this year. 4B and 4C aren't even written, much less available in pre-fascicle form.

Besides, this is an announcement at a TeX conference; it's going to be TeX-related.


Thanks for the update, I was under the impression that each of the fascicles were a dot volume, instead of chapters within 4A.


Maybe he's created an earthquake algorithm?


Well, if He's not the one demostrating P = NP or P != NP, some other will have to take the token. That's life. Anyway, Knuth is a great hacker, having my respect and admiration.


Do we know how long this has been up?

If it was something as significant as P{=,!=}NP, I really doubt he would have been able to keep this hidden for any length of time.


For a month or so. It was announced on HN before. Hit up searchyc.com if you are curious how long ago.


The Art of Computer Programming will not get finished.


This thread has too many one-line jokes like reddit.


TeX will be able to render moment tensor solutions, with a package called Beachball.


I think he will retire. That is the last speaking engagement in the page.


Maybe he will unleash the missing volumes of TAoCP


What's the purpose of this besides having us speculate? Just have a post tomorrow with whatever Knuth announced and it's enough to have a good discussion.


This better be good


In the same spirit as his objections to the old style delta (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cm.html) he'll be making comments regarding whether we should be writing with $\phi$ or $\varphi$


title should say "Knuth's..." not "Kuth's..."


sorry for the typo. that's a hard to control habit of mine, because in german it's ok to write 'Knuths'. fixed it.


He will be introducing the $99 holographic PC.




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