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Apart from the 2016 Christmas Tree lecture [1] (which is even available in 3D [2]), Knuth also mentioned this “mysterious package from Poland” during an earlier

by svat 9y ago

Apart from the 2016 Christmas Tree lecture [1] (which is even available in 3D [2]), Knuth also mentioned this “mysterious package from Poland” during an earlier (a week earlier) lecture at Brown University [3] (about 25 minutes in). I love this talk (he gave roughly the same talk at both places, though one was more rushed than the other). He goes pretty deep into history — for example his discussion of Hamiltonian tours (knight's tours etc.) in Sanskrit poetry is at a level of detail that I have not seen in any other published source in English. After knowing that he was interested in this topic, I requested a contemporary Sanskrit poet to write a “knight's tour” Sanskrit poem, and gave it to Knuth as a gift. He loved it! [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZB9HvddQk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZB9HvddQk [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DrzK3Z0rg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DrzK3Z0rg0 [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UFkH5ZlVqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UFkH5ZlVqQ

tuomosipola 9y ago
What a cool gift. I didn't know Knuth was into Sanskrit poetry. Nice to notice that people from STEM fields are interested in things like that. I'm always happy to see something related to ancient languages in HN.
- kbart 9y ago
  Actually, based on my limited social circle, people from STEM get into Sanskrit much faster, because of its complex rules and similarity to programming (it's their words, I don't know Sanskrit, so can't confirm it). Learning Sanskrit is kinda "cool" now. Also, my girlfriend (not from STEM background) knows Sanskrit pretty well and keeps telling me that she feels like writing code (as she imagines that from seeing me doing or talking about it) when translating text to/from Sanskrit.
- chubot 9y ago
  There is perhaps a technical reason for this. Computer languages are described using BNF notation, apparently invented in the 20th century, but others have noted that Panini did this 2500 years earlier, describing Sanskrit with a similar notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form The idea of describing the structure of language using rewriting rules can be traced back to at least the work of Pāṇini (ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian and a revered scholar in Hinduism who lived sometime between the 7th and 4th century BCE).[1][2] His notation to describe Sanskrit word structure notation is equivalent in power to that of Backus and has many similar properties. Citation: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=363165 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=363165 I can't copy the text here, but it's worth a read: https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/p-nini-backus-form-suggested-993dM00q6Q https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing-machin... Knuth is mentioned in the same letter as Panini, regarding the naming of "BNF". https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao-t_syntax.htm https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao-t_s... Knuth invented LR parsing of context free grammars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR_parser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR_parser LR parsers were invented by Donald Knuth in 1965 as an efficient generalization of precedence parsers. Knuth proved that LR parsers were the most general-purpose parsers possible that would still be efficient in the worst cases.
  - bakul 9y ago
    It is widely assumed Pāṇinian languages (generated using the formalism he used for describing Sanskrit) are context free languages but the following paper argues that they are a much larger set than CFLs. https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/panini-1.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/panini-1.pdf My Knuth tale: I happened to be sitting near Prof. Knuth at a dinner last December and I mentioned to him Pāṇini & Sanskrit in the context of something I work on now and then. He heard Sanskrit and immediately pointed me to this Christmas lecture of his!

by svat 9y ago

tuomosipola 9y ago

What a cool gift. I didn't know Knuth was into Sanskrit poetry. Nice to notice that people from STEM fields are interested in things like that. I'm always happy to see something related to ancient languages in HN.

kbart 9y ago
Actually, based on my limited social circle, people from STEM get into Sanskrit much faster, because of its complex rules and similarity to programming (it's their words, I don't know Sanskrit, so can't confirm it). Learning Sanskrit is kinda "cool" now. Also, my girlfriend (not from STEM background) knows Sanskrit pretty well and keeps telling me that she feels like writing code (as she imagines that from seeing me doing or talking about it) when translating text to/from Sanskrit.
chubot 9y ago
There is perhaps a technical reason for this. Computer languages are described using BNF notation, apparently invented in the 20th century, but others have noted that Panini did this 2500 years earlier, describing Sanskrit with a similar notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form The idea of describing the structure of language using rewriting rules can be traced back to at least the work of Pāṇini (ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian and a revered scholar in Hinduism who lived sometime between the 7th and 4th century BCE).[1][2] His notation to describe Sanskrit word structure notation is equivalent in power to that of Backus and has many similar properties. Citation: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=363165 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=363165 I can't copy the text here, but it's worth a read: https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/p-nini-backus-form-suggested-993dM00q6Q https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/association-for-computing-machin... Knuth is mentioned in the same letter as Panini, regarding the naming of "BNF". https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao-t_syntax.htm https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_rao-t_s... Knuth invented LR parsing of context free grammars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR_parser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR_parser LR parsers were invented by Donald Knuth in 1965 as an efficient generalization of precedence parsers. Knuth proved that LR parsers were the most general-purpose parsers possible that would still be efficient in the worst cases.
- bakul 9y ago
  It is widely assumed Pāṇinian languages (generated using the formalism he used for describing Sanskrit) are context free languages but the following paper argues that they are a much larger set than CFLs. https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/panini-1.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/panini-1.pdf My Knuth tale: I happened to be sitting near Prof. Knuth at a dinner last December and I mentioned to him Pāṇini & Sanskrit in the context of something I work on now and then. He heard Sanskrit and immediately pointed me to this Christmas lecture of his!