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Maths in Science – an interview with Don Knuth (2015)

96 pointsby mjsabout 9 years ago

3 comments

davidivadavidabout 9 years ago
That makes sense in terms of bit flipping, but does it make sense in terms of distance?<p>Assuming your mouth is a unit square, where you have to hit the four &quot;corners&quot;, with no distance between inside and outside, with Knuth&#x27;s pattern, I have to travel 5 units.<p>Meanwhile, doing inside&#x2F;outside clockwise only requires 4 units.<p>Am I missing a joke or something? Why, for instance, would you go across your mouth twice just to clean your upper teeth?
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latenightcodingabout 9 years ago
I know it was a honest mistake, but I would hate myself if I ignored an email from Don Knuth
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dangabout 9 years ago
Url changed from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beebo.org&#x2F;haycorn&#x2F;2016-02-24_how-knuth-brushes-his-teeth.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beebo.org&#x2F;haycorn&#x2F;2016-02-24_how-knuth-brushes-his-t...</a>, which points to this.<p>Submitters: HN prefers original sources. If you want to highlight some detail, such as a tooth-brushing algorithm, you can always do so via a comment in the thread.