On Tuesday 10th January, Donald Ervin Knuth, the American computing pioneer and author of the classic The Art of Computer Programming, celebrates his 74th birthday.

Four years ago, Knuth set aside a couple of days to record, in great depth, the story of his life and work for posterity. You can watch the recording in its entirety, free of charge, at http://webofstories.com, a huge online archive of video stories told by many of the most creative minds of our time - great scientists like Knuth, as well as outstanding artists, filmmakers, writers and poets.

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As with all Web of Stories contributors, the 7.5 hours of Knuth's recording are divided into a number of short stories of between two and ten minutes, with a fully searchable transcript. In one of the stories, Knuth talks about why he decided to write The Art of Computer Programming:

“My original motivation for writing it was not only that I liked the idea of writing books, but because I could see a big need for such a book. There was nothing like it.”

Looking back at his original plan for the book he says:

“So we set up a plan… to publish The Art of Computer Programming in seven volumes. And that plan… is still officially there, but three volumes have been in print now for more than 30 years, and I'm working on Volume Four.”

All the videos of Donald Knuth are easy to share with friends and are also free for embedding into personal blogs and websites.

http://www.webofstories.com/play/17060

Core Facts

Donald Ervin Knuth, the American computing pioneer and author of the classic The Art of Computer Programming, celebrates his 74th birthday
http://webofstories.com, a huge online archive of video stories told by many of the most creative minds of our time
Knuth talks about why he decided to write The Art of Computer Programming: “My original motivation for writing it was not only that I liked the idea of writing books, but because I could see a big need for such a book. There was nothing like it.”