Your observation, "I wish he was my professor ..." causes me to smile.
I took a/one course by Knuth in 1984 (the first ever course on Metafont) and he was an absolutely inspiring instructor. He made a point of knowing all the students. I see him from time to time (maybe once every 5 years on the average), and he always recognizes me, calls me by name and asks about what I'm doing and sometimes about APL. He referred Fred Brooks to me when Fred approached him and asked about an APL font for the Blaauw & Brooks Computer Architecture book. If there were many more professors with his skill and attitude, the world would be a better place. At 09:54 +0800 2010/06/29, Alex Rufon wrote: >Thanks for the document. > >I really enjoyed reading it although it's been decades since I >actually had to read proper mathematical notations. The author wrote >in a concise and clear way that I was able to follow his >explanations. I wish he was my professor when I was struggling >through college. :) > >I actually smiled when he wrote: >In general, when an Iverson-bracketed statement is false, we want it >to evaluate into >a "very strong 0," namely a zero so strong that it annihilates >anything it is multiplied by-even if >that other factor is undefined. > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] >On Behalf Of Andrew Nikitin >Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 12:35 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: [Jchat] Knuth on Iverson notation > > >Knuth writes on small portion of Iverson notation (characteristic >functions) with examples of its fruitful applications. > >http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/9205/9205211v1.pdf > >Not sure if it's been mentioned here > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
