Donald Knut: “Our elders played tennis, we were balls. They beat us, it hurt. "(11,12 / 97)

We continue to publish a translation of a series of autobiographical stories by Donald Knut.

11. Management of a basketball team

As I recall, that year I tried this for the first time, and I don’t remember exactly how long the experiment was going on, but they called it the Section of Honor, and this meant that 20 of us would just go to class together, while other students would attend classes apart. I doubt that other students spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday just like us. In addition, I think that maybe we were a little more strained than all the other students. Nevertheless, I had time to work on the school newspaper and to join the fraternity, which at that time was one of the important moments connected with entering the University of Keys. Most of the fun on campus was centered around fraternity, and so, as a freshman, I also joined the fraternity. So, in the first year, in the spring my article appeared in Mad Magazine. Later, I became the editor of a journal that we founded at the university under the title “Reviews of Engineering and Science”, in which we wrote on various scientific topics. I wrote an article about the Potrzebie system for this magazine.


I was the leader of the basketball team at the University of Keys, and I’ll tell you a little about this, because later, after I got into the field of computers, I used the experience of managing a basketball team. Therefore, I developed a strange formula in which I no longer believe, but, anyway, I used it to calculate the real contribution of each basketball player to the game. Not only the points he earned, but really any contribution. For example, if during a basketball game you had a ball in your hands, it costs something.

In fact, if while watching a basketball game you add one point to the score of the team that has the ball, this will give a more accurate idea of ​​what the real score of the game is. So possession of the ball is maybe one point. You can count it after the game; ask yourself a question, but really, how many times when you held the ball, did you make passes or let go of the ball, and how many points did you actually get during this time?

And so you can understand that your game was worth only seven-tenths of a point or something like that. But in any case, possession of the ball is worth something. Therefore, if you release the ball from your hands, then you have deprived your team of one point or, possibly, seven-tenths points. So this is a minus for you. If you intercepted the ball, if you returned the ball after you lost, you add points; your team takes possession of the ball, so you get approval for intercepting the ball.

If you throw the ball into the basket (then you could only get two points, in those days there were no three-point shots), then you get two points. But because of this, your team transfers the ball to the other team, so in fact you did not win two points for your team when you threw the ball. You have earned two points, but you have to take into account that your team now has to try again to take possession of the ball.

As a result, according to my formula, the total deposits of all players will be equal to the account with which our team will win or lose. But it will be evaluated if someone makes a punch and misses or ricoche the ball, so I deducted a little for the misses. So I collected a huge amount of statistics for each player. I had an observer who watched the game and shouted to me when something important happened, and I wrote it down, every little thing. After the game, I went and punched the cards that wrote down all these statistics and loaded them into a small computer program that calculated the formula and compiled a list for each player, in which their real contribution to the game was recorded, not just their goals and all of them. traditional statistics.

Keysovsky's coach, Nip Heim, liked this system, and he published these statistics, and the News Service of the University of Keysov always succeeded in trying to print interesting stories in a local newspaper. So the journalists were told about this formula, and IBM heard about it. Therefore, IBM sent an operator - a film crew - to make a film about how I estimate the game, and our case team plays basketball, of course, and so on. And then I punched the cards and put them in the IBM computer. Before taking a snapshot of the IBM computer, they put a large, huge IBM sign on the device so that no one could not miss it.

Then I press the buttons on the console, and the numbers are displayed, they are printed on the IBM printer, and then the trainer looks at it and publishes it. So it was a small film in which I starred, about two or three minutes. IBM sent the film to CBS, and they showed it on Sunday Night's News with Walter Cronkite, and all of my relatives in Florida saw me on TV. It was very exciting.

Also in the US News and World Report magazine they published a story about this, and this became my connection between computers and sports when I was studying at the University of Case. It was also a smart way for IBM to advertise, rather intrusive, but fun. It was then that I realized for the first time how hard it was to be a movie star, because I had to participate in the same scenes six times, perforate these cards again and again. I do not understand how Audrey Hepburn managed to look so good after the sixth take.

12. Brotherhood

At the University of Keys, I was in the fraternity. Before that, I spoke with several graduates (or students) at the University of Case at Milwaukee, and they said, “Oh, Don, fraternity is very important. You should take this very seriously when you go there. ”

In general, the customs of fraternity were then slightly different than they are now. This, of course, had its pluses and minuses, but it was precisely around the brotherhood that my life revolved around Keys. Probably, because after the end of the first year I lived with my comrades from the brotherhood in the house where the brotherhood was located.

Although first of all I went through what we called Hell Week - through the “test”. Within 7 days all of us, in order to earn the right to become full members of the fraternity, submitted to all the other members of the fraternity. They punished us, prevented us from sleeping, forced us to clean up the house of the brotherhood. It was then that I learned about ammonia and how to paint, clean the walls, how to repair the roof, and similar things. In addition, our senior comrades played tennis (we were balls): they beat us, it was painful - they thought out different ways in order to hammer into us the understanding that they had power, and we were nobody.

Now it is illegal, but I can say that for me it was something of a young fighter’s course, and I, as you know, never served. And you know what? I really matured this week. After that week I became so sure of myself as never before, so I can’t say that I don’t want my son to go through the same thing. I don’t think he ever went through this, and it seems surprising to me.

Anyway, it was part of the ritual of entering into fraternity. I have a picture of myself that the seniors took at the end of that week. I am unshaven and look as if I had been beaten, but still I understood that I had passed through a test that was serious. I wonder how you can pass on this experience to people in such a way that it is legal and people do not sue as they are doing now.

The post was written with the support of the EDISON Software company, which fights for the honor of Russian programmers and shares in detail their experience in developing complex software products .

Still

More about Knut on Habré

• Donald Knut: this is a turnaround
• Giant component: hooks for fishing, galaxy clusters, molecular biotechnology, nanomaterials
• How Donald Knut went to school and went to university
• Donald Knut about his happy life, his death and the last two projects
• Donald Knuth: about Richard Feynman, awards and algorithm of the ILC
• Donald Knut: about the assembler, translator and competent programming
• Donald Knut on the first steps in programming: How I spent the summer with a computer, not with girls (19,20,21,22 / 97)
• Donald Knut: When will the fourth volume finally come out?
• Donald Knut: about his wife, kisses, "Concrete math" and a look at teaching at the university
• Donald Knuth: how I started analyzing algorithms and went to the USSR for this (37.91.97 / 97)
• Donald Knut: How the “Art of Programming” was created (33,38,39 / 97)
• Donald Knut and Surreal Numbers: I worked for six days and rested on the seventh (40,41,42 / 97)
• Donald Knut: I sat in the backs of the desk and hounded jokes, and the teachers resigned and didn't often beat on the ass (1,2,3,7 / 97)
• Donald Knut: “My advice to the young” (93/97) and “Feeling the need to assert oneself” (9/97)
• Happy Birthday to Donald Knut
• Interview with Donald Knut
• Donald whip
• Literary programming