I really enjoyed this conversation with Donald. Here's the outline: 0:00 - Introduction 3:45 - IBM 650 7:51 - Geeks 12:29 - Alan Turing 14:26 - My life is a convex combination of english and mathematics 24:00 - Japanese arrow puzzle example 25:42 - Neural networks and machine learning 27:59 - The Art of Computer Programming 36:49 - Combinatorics 39:16 - Writing process 42:10 - Are some days harder than others? 48:36 - What's the "Art" in the Art of Computer Programming 50:21 - Binary (boolean) decision diagram 55:06 - Big-O notation 58:02 - P=NP 1:10:05 - Artificial intelligence 1:13:26 - Ant colonies and human cognition 1:17:11 - God and the Bible 1:24:28 - Reflection on life 1:28:25 - Facing mortality 1:33:40 - TeX and beautiful typography 1:39:23 - How much of the world do we understand? 1:44:17 - Question for God
Lex we need an interview with Andrew Yang. We been waiting months... You had several experts on AI and Economics and those guests thus far are perceiving UBI in a negative light. Most in part because they are not dialed in on the proposed implementation from Andrew Yang's UBI. Kai Fu Lee's argument on the labor displacement was to focus on retraining. Andrew Yang states that the retraining success rate is about 5%-15% for the manufacturing worker that were displaced from automation. You must agree that's freaking horrible. Ray Dalio's concern is that UBI will take away from other social programs and mostly focused on child's early development to provide opportunity at an early age. We all know that schools can only influence 30% of a child development and 60%-70% has most to do with what the child's home environment is like... Please get Andrew Yang on for the Rebuttal of Kai Fu Lee's and Ray Dalio's perspective. You yourself know very well that AI will rip through our economy and completely redefine labor. What this mean to our society at this moment is looking very dark. Please get Andrew Yang on your show... BTW massive fan of the show, only because I and many like me see the massive change coming down the pike and we all know it could be incredibly good for us and on the flip side, it could be incredibly bad for us... Please consider me very concerned and please excuse my forwardness...
1:17:11 God rolls the dice. However, the adversarial (Devil) tries to roll the dice back, in order to confuse the situation (ANALOGY - G.A.N.s or Generative Adversarial Networks). Therefore, there is a, contradictory, random, probabilistic, solution, determined by who knows how to roll the dice, while knowing the end result (Fate). Free will, only, occurs when intelligent living organisms work together for a common cause, I think. Which direction is the world headed, collectively?
1:39:23 Reality is a result of experiencing tragedy(ies) or Caring for others. Destruction of people and/or society(ies) is/are a result of fearlessness and/or lack of conscience (either on purpose or perhaps a lapse of memory (past experiences) - like dementia), I think. Flaws are our memories, either learned or overlooked, we have been exposed to, relative to the past. However, looking to the future, in a "positive light" is what normal reality should look like, to me.
1:44:17 Question for God - "What kind of browser do you have up here?" "I hope we had good internet." Answer from God - We live in a holographic ("super" (BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSION) internet of God's crafting) universe that connects us to our creator(s), via the dimensions we can not perceive with our eyes, but with, only, our minds and souls, I think. Quantitatively speaking, we are minuscule, compared to the size of our creator(s). That is what differentiates us, on planet Earth, to what lies beyond the infinity or finite real estate we call the universe(s), in my opinion. We seem to be two different entities (Two independent (yet dependent) systems that struggle to coexist). Therefore, one's own death is validated, (relative to some (NOT ALL HUMANS) intelligent living organisms), in order to meet our maker and/ or ask for forgiveness for our sins. ETERNAL LIFE IS RELATIVE TO ONE'S BELIEF SYSTEM AND / OR ENVIRONMENT. EITHER PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE FOREVER, IN THIS TIME WE CALL LIFE, OR ONE ACCEPTS DEATH, AT SOME POINT, TO HAVE ETERNAL FREEDOM FROM PAIN AND / OR QUESTIONS UNANSWERED, IN THIS FINITE / SELF CENTERED VIEW THAT MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN, GENERALLY SPEAKING, I THINK.
I've long admired Donald Knuth and much enjoyed your interview. Its pacing and development were superb. I chanced years ago to meet him at his Palo Alto church. In the passing of the peace he circled around to shake hands and at social hour engaged in conversation. Your fine interview has today given me a second chance to extend that pleasure. My double thanks.
@@unoriginalusernameno999 Next thing you know he'll be coming down from the mountain. Life might get complicated though, stone tables are not fashionable anymore just 10 rules and it's full, 128 Gb sd-cards though... Next bible 98.000.000 pages?
@@ACogloc he presumably named himself after the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (That's DSM 5, not sure what the extra 'D' stands for) So yeah, I think this is quite literally someone in need of a medication adjustment. We've grown so used to things like "AI-generated content", that we forget there are actually people suffering from thinking disorders who sincerely post indecipherable statements. Another reason to be careful and compassionate with responses.
Lex we need an interview with Andrew Yang. We been waiting months... You had several experts on AI and Economics and those guests thus far are perceiving UBI in a negative light. Mostly in part because they are not dialed in on the proposed implementation from Andrew Yang's UBI. Kai Fu Lee's argument on the labor displacement was to focus on retraining. Andrew Yang states that the retraining success rate is about 5%-15% for the manufacturing worker that were displaced from automation. You must agree that's freaking horrible. Ray's concern is that UBI will take away from other social programs and mostly focused on child's early development to provide opportunity at an early age. We all know that schools can only influence 30% of a child development and 60%-70% has most to do with what the child's home environment is like and this has to do with economic disparity... Please get Andrew Yang on for the Rebuttal of Kai Fu Lee's and Ray Dalio's perspective. You yourself know very well that AI will rip through our economy and completely redefine labor. What this mean to our society is at this moment is looking very dark. Please get Andrew Yang on your show... Please excuse my forwardness, as myself and many like me are very concerned about our future.
Lex, thanks for bringing us those podcasts. Very interesting, bring me knowledge and makes me think. Must required you lot of effort for little retribution. You are a very good person. Please kept up the good work in 2020. Wish you the best, wish us the best.
"I enjoy the fact I have limits" - but seemingly driven by the sense of being able to solve complex problems; one of many things to possibly take away from this talk. The openness of dealing with mortality and the contagious yet realistic curiosity really is inspiring to me. Thanks to both guest and host!
The greatest part about this is that he does not interrupts, unless he feels necessary. So many interviewees try to use that strategy as an unbalancing strategy.
So valuable to be able to hear this. As a youngster in the late 1990s I dreamed of hearing from all the experts in any domain I was interested in, but it was never realistic (at least not without a string of certain extraordinarily difficult or unlikely events). There's no way you have time to read even a hundredth of your comments, so I know with quite high probability that I'm speaking into the void, but thank you for making this vast wealth of knowledge so easily accessible.
Lex please conduct an interview with yourself as well. It's really a tough job to ask all these intelligent questions to all these experts from different fields. You are yourself a legend 😊
And have amended this instantly of course. It is probably my pocket had unsubscribed accidentally somewhere in the past while was listening one of these marvelous dialogues possible in a bus. I can't believe in such blatant negligence from my part. Being unsubscribed while I was listening unknown quantity of it more than a year and half, I am so ashamed of myself.
👍 I am so delighted to see this. The jump-ahead cuts are visually jarring. Each one spins off a distracting subroutine in my brain that wonders what awful thing happened that needed to be cut. An uncut version that plays back exactly as recorded would be even more wonderful.
So great to hear that he's still programming. Can't get enough of that, when you're solving fun puzzles and not making big systems that solve everything. :)
Excellent video. I have discovered a weird thing in C++ that made my program much faster. The problem for me was the L1 cache size on the CPU. Apparently, and also contrary to popular belief, the stack is actually the L1 cache on the CPU, and the heap is actually the computer's RAM. I have found this out by trying to pass a variable (custom c style data structure) larger than 1 MB from a function using "return". I discovered by trial and error that it occured when the variable size exceeded 1 MB, and I would receive the error "stack overflow". I thought that was odd, but the only thing in the computer that is 1 MB, is the L1 cache. I then verified this hypothesis by trying it on a computer with 2 MB of L1 cache, and sure enough, it then occured when it exceeded 2 MB. So apparently the stack is the L1 cache, and the heap is the RAM. So my problem was that I needed to edit this huge custom data structure, but I could not return it because of a stack overflow. The solution was something I stumbled upon, and I actually thought it was a bug. Apparently when you declare a custom data structure and also a pointer of the same type, then assign the pointer to the address of the data structure using "&" and use it as a pointer in a function header like this: struct MyStruct { char Data[10]; }; MyStruct MyData; MyStruct *MyPointer = &MyData; static void Myfunc(MyStruct *Data) { Data.Data[9] = '2'; Data.Data[10] = '\0'; } With "MyStruct" being a custom c data structure, the variable is not copied, and the function gains access to the variables within the structure as if it were a local variable. When accessing variables using pointers, it is either a period or "->" symbol depending on the scope.
"I get a surprise every time I have a bug in my program obviously" -- surely he's joking, what madness is this?? The rest of us get a surprise when we don't have a bug in our programs. I've been humbled today. Even Curry doesn't get a surprise when he misses a 3 pointer.
The equivalents of some of the guests of this podcast would be Archimedes and Pythagoras and Euler... crazy to imagine seeing a podcast with Pythagoras on RUclips, and then realize that's the math equivalent of what I'm seeing for computer science.
Hi Lex, what a fantastic interview with one of the heros of computer science! I am professor of computer science and physics and get a lot of motivation and historically interesting information from these kind of interviews. Of course, I‘ m also a tournament chess player, so also the interviews with Carlsen, Nakamura and Kasparov are really just fantastic and I could hardly believe that you really got them as interview partners, besides all the other very interesting figures of science and technology. It seems that you yourself also have an interesting path of life with time at Google and then MIT instructor. I wonder why that apparently didn‘t work out. It seems you are only missing out on Einstein, Newton, Heisenberg, Bor and Schrödinger but got many of the most interesting living scientists and entrepreneurs as interview partners. Amazing. I love watching the interviews with people that have to say something (in contrast to e.g. run-of-the-mill politicians). Keep it on!
As a non native english speakers, I have tough times to listen to you guys. I wish there are subtitles. [Actually I use the auto generated English subtitles but still it is not perfect]
Thank you Lex Fridman for the heavy questions you 'put on the table' of Donald Knuth. Mabye that's the reason why I see him now as a human being in the first place. You took the risk to loose him during the interview, but he stayed on line with you and special that makes him greater then I thought before this podcast. So for the second time: THANK YOU!
Thanks for another great Podcast! Would love it if you could interview John Carmack! Just because of the body of work he's already done and also because he's recently started looking into AGI.
Great episode and great choice for the end of the year episode, Lex! I never had a 650 but my first computer was a used PDP-10 that was about the size of a modern washing machine if you stacked everything.
That last Q/A is so hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. On a serious note thanks Lex for this. You have literally connected a generation with Knuth. I haven't seen an interview like this with him. Knuth as ever inspires me.
This is my new favorite channel. I love every single one of your videos. How do you manage to get all these great people on your show?! edit: in response to your ad placements, I see no problem with them in your designated spots. Like you said, they're placed in a way to not break the flow of the conversation. I hope your other fans agree as well :)
39:40 Don: "The chair I'm sitting in is where I do ..." Lex: "Where the magic happens? hahah" Don: "Well, reading a writing" Geeks are a special breed ;)
Don is still an amazingly sharp guy, even at 81! Of course, he's starting out so far ahead of us mere mortals, that he'd probably seem like a genius if he was working at 4% of his capacity. Remarkable man, great interview!
Yeah.. I don't think I'm still going to be programming when I am 81, much less at such a high level. That's another league. Unless there is some kind of advanced rejuvenation technique at that point.
I didn't quite know what to make of these conversations until 15:40. Lex has a goofy side. I am supremely glad that Lex has roped together this group and conversed with them. We all read Knuth and listened to him talk but never had a chance to see him in conversation. And I have to thank all of Lex's subjects for turn submitting to being interviewed. It has been unsurprisingly good to hear what they had to say.
I've been involved in several efforts to get programming accessible to non-geeks, and ultimately, all those efforts foundered on the same problem. Programs have irreducible complexity, and that information has to come from somewhere. People making simple, intuitive expressions have no idea how to provide it. Simple, intuitive expressions of anything require complex interpretation, disambiguation, and awareness of context. To get it right the system has to be aware of vast amounts of information and the results then depend as much on the state of this "background" information at the single instant as it does on the simple intuitive expression that was actually made at that instant.
Michael Polanyi used the concept [tacit knowledge] to describe the phenomenon that we all have a big bag of implicit understanding of context & background. We use that bag whenever we speak and communicate information, and we assume that our discussion partner uses more or less the same bag. A computer program, on the other hand, cannot work with implicit understanding of context.
@@ernstraedecker6174 I think it would be more accurate to say we haven't been building computer programs that work with implicit understanding of context. For the most part we haven't been trying, because it's damned hard. And those who've been trying have met with little success outside of "demo" systems. We're more at the stage of "look, this can mostly disambiguate pronouns!" than they are about talking, *including* without a second thought the use of pronouns, being a tiny footnote in the process of getting real work done.
Doesn't matter where you put the add, the content is fantastic!!! If required, increase the number of adds... Do whatever is required for you to continue having these conversations.
I know it's unprovable but your podcast is the dopest most badassical collection of bits in the history of ever. 🤜🤛 Wow man. Thank you for rocking your Purpose so elegantly. Happy & prosperous 2020 to you and your Loved Ones. Peace Lex.
For those who are interested, here is the graph class recognition in polynomial time result: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson-Seymour_theorem#Polynomial_time_recognition Also, is that a copy of ENIAC in Action I saw sitting next to Lex?!!
Wow! December 2022 and only now RUclips suggests your interview with Donald Knuth! I'm sure you realize what a privilege this is! To me he is to computer science what a great physicist like Newton is to physics. Awesome!
Amazing conversation. From James Gosling, Bjarne Stroustrupe and Brian Kerninghan, this was the most honest and most insightful. Brilliant youtube channel!
I'll one up many of the commentors here and say Knuth is THE greatest computer scientist of all time. Please don't disagree without making a solid justification of why not. I'm afraid Alan Turing didn't live long enough to get that designation.
Love how Knuth goes into the psychology behind how he and others like him think. I love who he mentions the right and left brain and tries to see the big picture.
Many thanks for your work and dedication, your podcast is fantastic! I would love to watch you debating with Ajay Agrawal or Yuval Noah Harari in 2020.
I am blown away by this for some reason. while we share so many traits, the one I admire most about Donald Knuth (and Lex) is the discipline to grunt out the last corner cases, refinement. I used to have that and think it can be exercised as a muscle, but urgency in time has made me sloppy. Very profound takeaway for me.
43:56 -- a typical notepad that Knuth writes on. (He calls it a "tablet", 43:10 onwards.) (I'm still watching the video, but in case I don't leave a comment again -- thanks for this; it's great to see one where the interviewer has done some homework and read up enough of what has already been said, to ask good questions that elicit new answers.)
Благодарю Алексей за это интервью. Дональд действительно очень особенный человек. Желаю тебе много успеха в Ютубе и личной жизни. Ты планируешь сделать несколько интересных интервью на русском языке?
I loved listening to Donald Knuth's passionate expressions for programming and of the maths underying these. Though this following need not be said, I will say it: Donald appears to have faith that a god as described in the myths of Christian writings exists. I wholeheartedly support and fight for the freedom for Donald and any religious/spiritual peep to believe in fables and in myths, so long as these beliefs do not impede nor supercede any of the human rights that our species has struggled and died for. 🌻
Some suggestions for future guests, if I might be so bold: Leslie Lamport Pedro Domingos Ben Goertzel Marcus Hutter Pei Wang John R. Anderson Paul Graham John Laird
Idk why but I can't stop thinking about how he resembles Yoda. I have grown up watching Star Wars and always kind of have respected thoughts of Yoda. And now being in computer science I think I found the real person whom I can call the real embodiment of the same.
He doesn't like Dostojewski?!!! oof! I guess that is one of the things that separates the peasants from the half gods. But why do physicists only know the 4th dimension, I thought that was quite human...
I really enjoyed this conversation with Donald. Here's the outline:
0:00 - Introduction
3:45 - IBM 650
7:51 - Geeks
12:29 - Alan Turing
14:26 - My life is a convex combination of english and mathematics
24:00 - Japanese arrow puzzle example
25:42 - Neural networks and machine learning
27:59 - The Art of Computer Programming
36:49 - Combinatorics
39:16 - Writing process
42:10 - Are some days harder than others?
48:36 - What's the "Art" in the Art of Computer Programming
50:21 - Binary (boolean) decision diagram
55:06 - Big-O notation
58:02 - P=NP
1:10:05 - Artificial intelligence
1:13:26 - Ant colonies and human cognition
1:17:11 - God and the Bible
1:24:28 - Reflection on life
1:28:25 - Facing mortality
1:33:40 - TeX and beautiful typography
1:39:23 - How much of the world do we understand?
1:44:17 - Question for God
Lex we need an interview with Andrew Yang. We been waiting months... You had several experts on AI and Economics and those guests thus far are perceiving UBI in a negative light. Most in part because they are not dialed in on the proposed implementation from Andrew Yang's UBI. Kai Fu Lee's argument on the labor displacement was to focus on retraining. Andrew Yang states that the retraining success rate is about 5%-15% for the manufacturing worker that were displaced from automation. You must agree that's freaking horrible. Ray Dalio's concern is that UBI will take away from other social programs and mostly focused on child's early development to provide opportunity at an early age. We all know that schools can only influence 30% of a child development and 60%-70% has most to do with what the child's home environment is like... Please get Andrew Yang on for the Rebuttal of Kai Fu Lee's and Ray Dalio's perspective. You yourself know very well that AI will rip through our economy and completely redefine labor. What this mean to our society at this moment is looking very dark. Please get Andrew Yang on your show... BTW massive fan of the show, only because I and many like me see the massive change coming down the pike and we all know it could be incredibly good for us and on the flip side, it could be incredibly bad for us... Please consider me very concerned and please excuse my forwardness...
What the....YOU FINALLY DID IT!!! WOW😃
1:17:11 God rolls the dice. However, the adversarial (Devil) tries to roll the dice back, in order to confuse the situation (ANALOGY - G.A.N.s or Generative Adversarial Networks). Therefore, there is a, contradictory, random, probabilistic, solution, determined by who knows how to roll the dice, while knowing the end result (Fate). Free will, only, occurs when intelligent living organisms work together for a common cause, I think. Which direction is the world headed, collectively?
1:39:23 Reality is a result of experiencing tragedy(ies) or Caring for others. Destruction of people and/or society(ies) is/are a result of fearlessness and/or lack of conscience (either on purpose or perhaps a lapse of memory (past experiences) - like dementia), I think. Flaws are our memories, either learned or overlooked, we have been exposed to, relative to the past. However, looking to the future, in a "positive light" is what normal reality should look like, to me.
1:44:17 Question for God - "What kind of browser do you have up here?" "I hope we had good internet." Answer from God - We live in a holographic ("super" (BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSION) internet of God's crafting) universe that connects us to our creator(s), via the dimensions we can not perceive with our eyes, but with, only, our minds and souls, I think. Quantitatively speaking, we are minuscule, compared to the size of our creator(s). That is what differentiates us, on planet Earth, to what lies beyond the infinity or finite real estate we call the universe(s), in my opinion. We seem to be two different entities (Two independent (yet dependent) systems that struggle to coexist). Therefore, one's own death is validated, (relative to some (NOT ALL HUMANS) intelligent living organisms), in order to meet our maker and/ or ask for forgiveness for our sins. ETERNAL LIFE IS RELATIVE TO ONE'S BELIEF SYSTEM AND / OR ENVIRONMENT. EITHER PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE FOREVER, IN THIS TIME WE CALL LIFE, OR ONE ACCEPTS DEATH, AT SOME POINT, TO HAVE ETERNAL FREEDOM FROM PAIN AND / OR QUESTIONS UNANSWERED, IN THIS FINITE / SELF CENTERED VIEW THAT MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN, GENERALLY SPEAKING, I THINK.
I've long admired Donald Knuth and much enjoyed your interview. Its pacing and development were superb. I chanced years ago to meet him at his Palo Alto church. In the passing of the peace he circled around to shake hands and at social hour engaged in conversation. Your fine interview has today given me a second chance to extend that pleasure. My double thanks.
I feel spoiled with all these guests. Would love to see Grant Sanderson of 3blue1brown on here. Like so Lex could see this
I did! I think it'll be out next Monday or Tuesday. And I'll probably talk to him again.
@@lexfridman Wow! Always 1 step ahead, your work is awesome man!
Lex Fridman WOW! Whose next? Jeff Bezos? Tory Bruno?
@@unoriginalusernameno999 Next thing you know he'll be coming down from the mountain. Life might get complicated though, stone tables are not fashionable anymore just 10 rules and it's full, 128 Gb sd-cards though... Next bible 98.000.000 pages?
@@ACogloc he presumably named himself after the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (That's DSM 5, not sure what the extra 'D' stands for) So yeah, I think this is quite literally someone in need of a medication adjustment. We've grown so used to things like "AI-generated content", that we forget there are actually people suffering from thinking disorders who sincerely post indecipherable statements. Another reason to be careful and compassionate with responses.
Get Linus Torvalds next!
Yes. Torvalds please
Yes and then John Cena pls
and Theo Deraadt should make for an interesting interviewee in the open source realm as well.
@@keedt yes and then also Brock Lesnar
@@williamhumphries2900 No :(
He keeps doing his "you can't see me" thing and then disappears while Lex ask questions.
These videos with living legends are an incredible gift and contribution to humanity. Thanks for these, Lex.
Interview haven't begun and I already clicked like. KNUTH!! He's my homeboy!
Lex, anything is okay as long as you are talking with the Knuth.
Daaaaang Lex Fridman is bringing it! Thanks for the holiday uploads. You're the best!
Lex we need an interview with Andrew Yang. We been waiting months... You had several experts on AI and Economics and those guests thus far are perceiving UBI in a negative light. Mostly in part because they are not dialed in on the proposed implementation from Andrew Yang's UBI. Kai Fu Lee's argument on the labor displacement was to focus on retraining. Andrew Yang states that the retraining success rate is about 5%-15% for the manufacturing worker that were displaced from automation. You must agree that's freaking horrible. Ray's concern is that UBI will take away from other social programs and mostly focused on child's early development to provide opportunity at an early age. We all know that schools can only influence 30% of a child development and 60%-70% has most to do with what the child's home environment is like and this has to do with economic disparity... Please get Andrew Yang on for the Rebuttal of Kai Fu Lee's and Ray Dalio's perspective. You yourself know very well that AI will rip through our economy and completely redefine labor. What this mean to our society is at this moment is looking very dark. Please get Andrew Yang on your show... Please excuse my forwardness, as myself and many like me are very concerned about our future.
I love how indifferent Lex seems. It gives me old news anchor vibes, which is what we need more of.
Lex, thanks for bringing us those podcasts. Very interesting, bring me knowledge and makes me think. Must required you lot of effort for little retribution. You are a very good person. Please kept up the good work in 2020. Wish you the best, wish us the best.
One of the greatest computer scientist and mathematician of all time!
Him and Ritchie are my hero's
@@ofHerWordritchie who?
@@vikingthedude I’m a nigger
@@vikingthedude Almost certainly referring to Dennis Ritchie.
"I enjoy the fact I have limits" - but seemingly driven by the sense of being able to solve complex problems; one of many things to possibly take away from this talk.
The openness of dealing with mortality and the contagious yet realistic curiosity really is inspiring to me. Thanks to both guest and host!
The greatest part about this is that he does not interrupts, unless he feels necessary.
So many interviewees try to use that strategy as an unbalancing strategy.
Been awaiting this conversation for months!
So valuable to be able to hear this.
As a youngster in the late 1990s I dreamed of hearing from all the experts in any domain I was interested in, but it was never realistic (at least not without a string of certain extraordinarily difficult or unlikely events). There's no way you have time to read even a hundredth of your comments, so I know with quite high probability that I'm speaking into the void, but thank you for making this vast wealth of knowledge so easily accessible.
A Legend! Thank you Mr. Knuth for all algorithms I learned !
Lex please conduct an interview with yourself as well. It's really a tough job to ask all these intelligent questions to all these experts from different fields. You are yourself a legend 😊
I was taught AP Calculus AB by his son. Needless to say, he was a great teacher.
To one more decade of this podcast 🍺
You ask good questions, this is how a podcast should be!
This is a gold mine, thanks for posting.
In my amazement I have nocided I was unsubscribed on this gorgeous channel,
And have amended this instantly of course. It is probably my pocket had unsubscribed accidentally somewhere in the past while was listening one of these marvelous dialogues possible in a bus. I can't believe in such blatant negligence from my part. Being unsubscribed while I was listening unknown quantity of it more than a year and half, I am so ashamed of myself.
Lex, my only complaint is I can't keep up with watching all these amazing interviews. Deepest kudos to you sir.
👍 I am so delighted to see this. The jump-ahead cuts are visually jarring. Each one spins off a distracting subroutine in my brain that wonders what awful thing happened that needed to be cut. An uncut version that plays back exactly as recorded would be even more wonderful.
So great to hear that he's still programming. Can't get enough of that, when you're solving fun puzzles and not making big systems that solve everything. :)
I love listening to very intelligent people formulate a thought. This is a brilliant man. What a treat to hear him talk in a relaxed setting.
Excellent video. I have discovered a weird thing in C++ that made my program much faster. The problem for me was the L1 cache size on the CPU. Apparently, and also contrary to popular belief, the stack is actually the L1 cache on the CPU, and the heap is actually the computer's RAM. I have found this out by trying to pass a variable (custom c style data structure) larger than 1 MB from a function using "return". I discovered by trial and error that it occured when the variable size exceeded 1 MB, and I would receive the error "stack overflow". I thought that was odd, but the only thing in the computer that is 1 MB, is the L1 cache. I then verified this hypothesis by trying it on a computer with 2 MB of L1 cache, and sure enough, it then occured when it exceeded 2 MB. So apparently the stack is the L1 cache, and the heap is the RAM. So my problem was that I needed to edit this huge custom data structure, but I could not return it because of a stack overflow. The solution was something I stumbled upon, and I actually thought it was a bug. Apparently when you declare a custom data structure and also a pointer of the same type, then assign the pointer to the address of the data structure using "&" and use it as a pointer in a function header like this:
struct MyStruct {
char Data[10];
};
MyStruct MyData;
MyStruct *MyPointer = &MyData;
static void Myfunc(MyStruct *Data)
{
Data.Data[9] = '2';
Data.Data[10] = '\0';
}
With "MyStruct" being a custom c data structure, the variable is not copied, and the function gains access to the variables within the structure as if it were a local variable. When accessing variables using pointers, it is either a period or "->" symbol depending on the scope.
"I get a surprise every time I have a bug in my program obviously" -- surely he's joking, what madness is this??
The rest of us get a surprise when we don't have a bug in our programs.
I've been humbled today.
Even Curry doesn't get a surprise when he misses a 3 pointer.
hahahaahhahaha!!! O boy, can't stop laughing man!!!!
The equivalents of some of the guests of this podcast would be Archimedes and Pythagoras and Euler... crazy to imagine seeing a podcast with Pythagoras on RUclips, and then realize that's the math equivalent of what I'm seeing for computer science.
Hi Lex, what a fantastic interview with one of the heros of computer science! I am professor of computer science and physics and get a lot of motivation and historically interesting information from these kind of interviews. Of course, I‘ m also a tournament chess player, so also the interviews with Carlsen, Nakamura and Kasparov are really just fantastic and I could hardly believe that you really got them as interview partners, besides all the other very interesting figures of science and technology. It seems that you yourself also have an interesting path of life with time at Google and then MIT instructor. I wonder why that apparently didn‘t work out. It seems you are only missing out on Einstein, Newton, Heisenberg, Bor and Schrödinger but got many of the most interesting living scientists and entrepreneurs as interview partners. Amazing. I love watching the interviews with people that have to say something (in contrast to e.g. run-of-the-mill politicians). Keep it on!
As a non native english speakers, I have tough times to listen to you guys. I wish there are subtitles. [Actually I use the auto generated English subtitles but still it is not perfect]
This is unbelievable. You got knuth. You got great connections..
20 Years Ago I discovered "The Art of computer programming" this brings me "the light"
Raúl Alvarez Which country?
Raúl Alvarez I would too if I would have 100 more years in life
I discovered it in year 2000 as well.
Thank you Lex Fridman for the heavy questions you 'put on the table' of Donald Knuth. Mabye that's the reason why I see him now as a human being in the first place. You took the risk to loose him during the interview, but he stayed on line with you and special that makes him greater then I thought before this podcast. So for the second time: THANK YOU!
Thanks for another great Podcast! Would love it if you could interview John Carmack! Just because of the body of work he's already done and also because he's recently started looking into AGI.
Nice surprise. Glad to hear one more episode in 2019. Thank you for the amazing work! Learning a ton from these conversations. Awe inspiring stuff.
At last...thank you, would love to listen to Andrej Karpathy
Can we expect Geoffrey Hinton in near feature in the podcast
probably not, GH has back issues and can't travel far... Lex would have to travel to Toronto... tho now they could just do zoom
Great episode and great choice for the end of the year episode, Lex!
I never had a 650 but my first computer was a used PDP-10 that was about the size of a modern washing machine if you stacked everything.
Damn lex, you never rest. I can't keep up! 🙂
Блин, сам Дональд Кнут. Круто!
Ееее, русские люди)))))
What kinda browser do you have up here. Dude could have been a comedian
"What kind of browser do you have up here" 😆 lol. What a priceless question! 🥰 Donald Knuth! Mahalo Lex Fridman, another endearing podcast!
That last Q/A is so hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. On a serious note thanks Lex for this. You have literally connected a generation with Knuth. I haven't seen an interview like this with him. Knuth as ever inspires me.
You are a good interviewer. Your questions are good and you let the interviewed answer without stepping in and put yourself forward. That's gold.
I love Don Knuth, he was great on 3's company!
It is my hope if I ever get past 80 to be half as sharp as Don Knuth. What a luminary!
This is my new favorite channel. I love every single one of your videos. How do you manage to get all these great people on your show?!
edit: in response to your ad placements, I see no problem with them in your designated spots. Like you said, they're placed in a way to not break the flow of the conversation. I hope your other fans agree as well :)
39:40
Don: "The chair I'm sitting in is where I do ..."
Lex: "Where the magic happens? hahah"
Don: "Well, reading a writing"
Geeks are a special breed ;)
"Donald Knuth, he is the God of programming!" -- Mark, University of Illinois, Fall semester, 1984... just like yesterday.
Don is still an amazingly sharp guy, even at 81! Of course, he's starting out so far ahead of us mere mortals, that he'd probably seem like a genius if he was working at 4% of his capacity. Remarkable man, great interview!
Incredible interview. In the early 70’s Vols 1 and 3 were my foundation. Seeing hearing Don puts a big comfortable smile on my face. Thanks Lex.
Yeah.. I don't think I'm still going to be programming when I am 81, much less at such a high level. That's another league. Unless there is some kind of advanced rejuvenation technique at that point.
WOW! no time left to watch TV with all those great podcast :-)
Thanks!
I didn't quite know what to make of these conversations until 15:40. Lex has a goofy side.
I am supremely glad that Lex has roped together this group and conversed with them. We all read Knuth and listened to him talk but never had a chance to see him in conversation.
And I have to thank all of Lex's subjects for turn submitting to being interviewed. It has been unsurprisingly good to hear what they had to say.
I've been involved in several efforts to get programming accessible to non-geeks, and ultimately, all those efforts foundered on the same problem. Programs have irreducible complexity, and that information has to come from somewhere. People making simple, intuitive expressions have no idea how to provide it.
Simple, intuitive expressions of anything require complex interpretation, disambiguation, and awareness of context. To get it right the system has to be aware of vast amounts of information and the results then depend as much on the state of this "background" information at the single instant as it does on the simple intuitive expression that was actually made at that instant.
Michael Polanyi used the concept [tacit knowledge] to describe the phenomenon that we all have a big bag of implicit understanding of context & background. We use that bag whenever we speak and communicate information, and we assume that our discussion partner uses more or less the same bag.
A computer program, on the other hand, cannot work with implicit understanding of context.
@@ernstraedecker6174 I think it would be more accurate to say we haven't been building computer programs that work with implicit understanding of context. For the most part we haven't been trying, because it's damned hard. And those who've been trying have met with little success outside of "demo" systems.
We're more at the stage of "look, this can mostly disambiguate pronouns!" than they are about talking, *including* without a second thought the use of pronouns, being a tiny footnote in the process of getting real work done.
I didn't even study computer science (aerospace engineering) but I love these interviews.
Only a genius like Donald Knuth could invent the LR Parser.
You should have made this interview #63 (111111) or #64 (1000000)
I am writing this comment before watching the video because I am sure that the content will be incredibly amazing
"how would you analyse your own life, asymptotically speaking", legend subjected to stress
Saw the thumbnail and literally swore out loud. Thank you, Lex!
Alex Hiller “Holy F S” for me.
how did i not find this podcast earlier...thank you lex
you can't hide forever agent 47, i knew i would find you.
Interview Anders Hejlsberg! The designer of Turbo Pascal, C# and Typescript!
I keep hearing James Franco haha… excellent podcast though
Thanks for another great interview Lex!
Your suit gives Computers the class they deserve.
Your hi-fi matches your suit! Where's the single malt? Excellent interview!
Doesn't matter where you put the add, the content is fantastic!!! If required, increase the number of adds... Do whatever is required for you to continue having these conversations.
I have found my home on the internet thanks to your AI Podcast Lex. Thank you for doing all this!
I know it's unprovable but your podcast is the dopest most badassical collection of bits in the history of ever. 🤜🤛 Wow man. Thank you for rocking your Purpose so elegantly. Happy & prosperous 2020 to you and your Loved Ones. Peace Lex.
I like Geek thinking. I know why I still gravitate that way at 75. I have computer science son.
43:37 Lex almost drooled if u look closely enough
For those who are interested, here is the graph class recognition in polynomial time result: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson-Seymour_theorem#Polynomial_time_recognition
Also, is that a copy of ENIAC in Action I saw sitting next to Lex?!!
Wow! December 2022 and only now RUclips suggests your interview with Donald Knuth! I'm sure you realize what a privilege this is! To me he is to computer science what a great physicist like Newton is to physics. Awesome!
Amazing conversation. From James Gosling, Bjarne Stroustrupe and Brian Kerninghan, this was the most honest and most insightful. Brilliant youtube channel!
Very good editing. The cross-fades instead of jump-cuts during the excising of short pauses is pretty smooth.
I'll one up many of the commentors here and say Knuth is THE greatest computer scientist of all time. Please don't disagree without making a solid justification of why not. I'm afraid Alan Turing didn't live long enough to get that designation.
I don t really want to disagree,but how would you qualify someone,as the "greatest" computer scientist ?
The importance of this video cannot be over stated. Thank you.
What IS the chair he is sitting in? Amazing, Swedish and black is all I can glean from the interview..
I just bought MMIX 1-4 and supplementary volume. So excited to become ready for RISC-V
Thanks as always for sharing these wonderful people
I heard that his book "Art of Computer Programming" is too difficult for most people and programmers to understand.
Love how Knuth goes into the psychology behind how he and others like him think. I love who he mentions the right and left brain and tries to see the big picture.
Many thanks for your work and dedication, your podcast is fantastic! I would love to watch you debating with Ajay Agrawal or Yuval Noah Harari in 2020.
A man so far traveled he approaches home from the backdoor traveling away from it!!! This was sublime!
I am blown away by this for some reason.
while we share so many traits, the one I admire most about Donald Knuth (and Lex) is the discipline to grunt out the last corner cases, refinement.
I used to have that and think it can be exercised as a muscle, but urgency in time has made me sloppy.
Very profound takeaway for me.
this was such a treat. i will cherish this interview for years to come. thank you!
Can I like this 1000 times???
Thanks for this led 😊
43:56 -- a typical notepad that Knuth writes on. (He calls it a "tablet", 43:10 onwards.)
(I'm still watching the video, but in case I don't leave a comment again -- thanks for this; it's great to see one where the interviewer has done some homework and read up enough of what has already been said, to ask good questions that elicit new answers.)
And shallow me really wanted to see his keyboard, and know what OS he is using /s
this is a good show. you're interviewing some bix names Lexicon
Благодарю Алексей за это интервью. Дональд действительно очень особенный человек. Желаю тебе много успеха в Ютубе и личной жизни.
Ты планируешь сделать несколько интересных интервью на русском языке?
I loved listening to Donald Knuth's passionate expressions for programming and of the maths underying these. Though this following need not be said, I will say it: Donald appears to have faith that a god as described in the myths of Christian writings exists. I wholeheartedly support and fight for the freedom for Donald and any religious/spiritual peep to believe in fables and in myths, so long as these beliefs do not impede nor supercede any of the human rights that our species has struggled and died for. 🌻
You should get inigo quillez on. He’s an amazing CG programmer/demoscener.
I'm hesitating between "Teach me master" and "We're not worthy, we're not worthy", so I decided to use both in one comment, because.
Some suggestions for future guests, if I might be so bold:
Leslie Lamport
Pedro Domingos
Ben Goertzel
Marcus Hutter
Pei Wang
John R. Anderson
Paul Graham
John Laird
My "like" is for Leslie Lamport.
Lex, well done on all the interviews over the year. Really enjoyed most of them.
Idk why but I can't stop thinking about how he resembles Yoda. I have grown up watching Star Wars and always kind of have respected thoughts of Yoda. And now being in computer science I think I found the real person whom I can call the real embodiment of the same.
God, give him strength to complete The Art Of Computer Programming
He doesn't like Dostojewski?!!! oof! I guess that is one of the things that separates the peasants from the half gods. But why do physicists only know the 4th dimension, I thought that was quite human...
What did he say about the problem that has a hundred variables and having to do 2^100 operations? Couldn't hear that properly. Nice vid, Lex.