Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About by Donald Ervin Knuth

Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About Reviews

• 
  Mirek Kukla

  "Things a computer scientist rarely talks about" is the written transcript of a series of lectures by Donald Knuth for an MIT course called "God and Computers." On the surface, this is a fascinating pairing: as a newspaper headline quipped, it’s not often that "a computer god talks about God." (viii) Sadly, these lectures are less about God and more about "3:16 Bible texts illuminated," a book about the bible Knuth wrote a few years prior. The vast majority of this book consists of Knuth talking about that book: why he wrote it, how he wrote it, and what he learned from writing it. Knuth’s thoughts on God and belief are sprinkled about sparsely, rarely addressed directly, and mostly show up as an afterthought.
  
  Since the chapters are essentially unedited lecture transcripts, the signal-to-noise ratio here is incredibly low. One gets the impression that Knuth only had a vague outline for each lecture and just kinda winged it. Each chapter is incredibly unfocused. Knuth often goes deep into random biographical tangents, and he rarely takes a step back to reflect. That’s not to say there’s nothing of interest here. Knuth’s beliefs do surface here and there, but the amount of noise you have wade to find a nugget of insight is silly.
  
  The most notable thing about this book is the fact it exists. If nothing else, this tells you that Knuth - the father of computer science as an academic discipline and one of the most brilliant minds of our time - believes in God. It’s something he’s thought a lot about and something that really matters to him. And that’s worth reflecting on. Just don’t expect to read about Knuth reflections on this topic. Sadly, these are things a computer scientist rarely talks about.
  
  Notable quotes
  
  "Theologians have basically done a good job." (5)
  
  "Some things are beyond rationality and proof, and I don’t think God wants them to be analyzable or provable." (17)
  
  "God definitely wants people to be actively searching for better understanding of life’s mysteries, even though those mysteries will never be fully understood." (145)
  
  "I think the Bible holds some of the best clues other than the universe itself as to what God wants us to do." (191)
  
  "I don’t believe in prayer for selfish things… I think of prayer as a conversation with God. Even if I didn’t know that prayer was effective I would do it anyway. It’s just something that feels natural." (195)
  
  "My fondest hope is that you continue to seek answers, even though the questions may be unanswerable." (198)
• 
  Matt Hartzell

  I thought Knuth's book was fairly interesting. This book is actually a transcription of several lectures he gave at MIT, on the topic of how spirituality, art and creativity intermingle with computer science. He spent a fair amount of time talking about the other book he wrote, 3:16, which kind of makes me wish I had just read that one instead.
  
  Knuth brings together a seemingly unrelated number of topics. As one of the most prolific computer scientists alive today, he is also a Christian. One thing Knuth is known for in academic circles is his research into random data, and how that data is representative of a whole. Accordingly, he wrote 3:16, an intense look at every 3:16 verse in the Bible. Knuth delved into scholarship by writing his own translations of those verses, based on the original languages. He also asked some of the the world's most distinguished calligraphers to create artistic representations of these verses.
  
  Popular culture would have you believe that any intelligent, educated person has thrown off the trappings of religious belief, so it's always nice to hear someone like Knuth speak openly about his faith. However, he did reach a couple conclusions over the course of 3:16 that I find highly suspect. One conclusion is that Knuth believes the journey is more important than the destination, in this case, Heaven. I felt that Knuth devalued Heaven throughout his talk, and while I think it is important to serve God faithfully in life, I think Heaven is much more important than Knuth would lead you to believe. He also concludes that in his research for 3:16, he learned much about other religions, and therefore believes God to be speaking through those religions and their texts. He seemed to be running pretty close to universalism.
  
  All in all, I enjoyed the read.
• 
  Alex

  This seems to be a polarising book. Like with any book that touches on religion, it'll provoke strong reactions. I enjoyed it, and I got more out of it on a second reading. Knuth touches on a number of interesting subjects that you can enjoy irrespective of your system of beliefs. From random sampling, to language translation, to finiteness/infinity, it's an enlightening read.
  
  Knuth is not a militant christian. You will see his personal convictions expressed once in a while, but it doesn't feel like he's trying to push them on his readers.
  
  I'm glad I re-read this book, and I'll mark it for another re-read in 5 year's time or so.
• 
  Nguyễn Nghị

  I really wish I could enjoy this book more, but I first came to it expecting something entirely different. Even if my expectations had aligned with the book (which is mostly about his 3:16 project and the little nuggets of insights about God he gathered along the way), the meandering and unfocused writing (or, more accurately, lecturing) would have made the book equally frustrating as if it wanted to intellectually edge me to the distant, unforseeable climax.
  
  Lecture 6, however, is really enlightening partially because it relates and ties together many ideas previously mentioned in a fairly concise and, at times, surprising way. If you only have 30 minutes to spare and/or only interested in the gist of Knuth's rumination on God in terms of computer science, read that chapter and perhaps ignore everything else.
• 
  Josh Friedlander

  Mostly about Knuth's book
  3:16 - Bible Texts Illuminated - which has pretty art and calligraphy about 66 Bible verses, like this
  
  
  
  plus some thoughts on faith, the size of finite numbers, prayer and finding a path in life.
• 
  Nick Black

  Amazon, 2008-10-03. Interesting set of lectures, largely about the random sampling of the Bible Knuth used to write
  3:16.
• 
  Rey

  Too much religion... but there were some interesting thoughts throughout the book.
• 
  Jeroen Vaelen

  Too much religion for me to really enjoy it but there were some very interesting points and thoughts throughout the book.
• 
  Lyla

  They're lectures by a man going outside of his field. It's fine, if you are a particular fan of Knuth, for example, but I wasn't particularly impressed with his project.
• 
  Gohar Irfan

  More so than his personal beliefs about religion or Christianity, Donald discusses a framework (based on some concepts also important to Computer Science) to study religion. Going into the book, I was expecting more of a discussion around a top computer scientist's ideas of religion and how he came to those. However, that is not the fundamental theme of the book; it's something that is touched on more in depth in the final lecture.
  Donald talks to a great extent of the methodology he used, and the importance of it in general, while studying the Bible when he wrote his book 3:16. This series of lectures gives an interesting perspective on things like the importance of randomness, aesthetics etc.
• 
  Rick Sam

  Donald Knuth, writes about his thoughts on God and Computer Science, but he goes into a lot of details about 3:16 book. Most of this book goes to talk about 3:16 book.
  
  He says theologians, bible translations are more difficult than Computer Science, and mathematicians because there's more work involved, and scholarly opinion on each text.
  
  I learnt about sampling method, and how he learnt a lot by selecting sample verses from each chapter of the Bible. Other than, that I don't think he said something new. He's humble about this topic.
  
  Deus Vult,
  Gottfried.
• 
  Mrklingon

  Wonderful discussion of all sorts of ideas, both scientific and theological. Especially excellent explanation of his 3:16 project.
• 
  Ushan

  The famous computer scientist was raised a Lutheran, and as he was entering old age, he decided to learn the Bible better. Since the whole Bible is huge, he decided to take a sample of the Bible. The sample did not have to be random: it could be merely arbitrary; since John 3:16 is a famous verse, he decided to study verse 3:16 of every book in the Christian Bible. It was like pivoting on array element 316 in Quicksort: it does not guarantee that Quicksort doesn't become quadratic, but neither does pivoting on a random element. In a few books, chapter 3 has fewer than 16 verses; Knuth continued on to chapter 4; a few books do not have chapter 3; Knuth omitted them. Since he did not know either Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek, Knuth studied a large number of translations of the Bible into English, ancient and modern, and came up with his own translations of each verse. He then commissioned calligraphers to write out each verse, and bound their drawings together in a book. This study answers a question I once had: in Hebrew, leHem is bread, and in Arabic, laHm is meat; Lev 3:16 has the word leHem, but it refers to something being burned at an altar, which is obviously not bread.
• 
  Paul

  This really isn't a 5-star book in many senses. As transcripts of lectures (and very exact ones at that) it takes a little getting used to reading, at least one chapter was way to technical for me, and there were theological conclusions which I couldn't agree with.
  
  But I just had to give it five stars because this book tries to do what no book I've read has tried before: to bring together computer science, and its way of thinking, and applies that to God. Knuth's way of going about getting to know God more really related to me. It was incredibly refreshing to hear the Bible approached in this way. Not that it's better than any other way, but I think it was a way that connects with how I like to relate: systematic, procedural, investigative, intellectual yet truly humble.
  
  A combination of computer science, Christianity, and typography: what more could you want.
• 
  Anne

  Knuth does not claim to have any particular qualification to write about Christianity, having had no formal training in theology, but I am VERY glad he went ahead with the project anyway. I found this to be an interesting, if eclectic, selection of ideas relating to faith that had some link to his work in computer science. I found it helpful in particular to learn tidbits about how computer scientists think. Especially interesting is his description of why he decided to use random sampling to study the bible, which culminated in the 3:16 project.
• 
  Robert

  Any time Donald Knuth writes something it is well worth reading...but this is a special gem. I was expecting something very different when I bought this book...but what I got was very valuable. This book is something that not only every Computer Scientist should read but everyone who deals with information, computers, graphics, and data should read. It won't directly lead you down specific paths...but you will get great insights into mankind, machines, and the nature of the soul. Very well worth reading.
• 
  Charles

  i have long-adored don knuth for his genius in computer programming and ability to teach others this knowledge. he is a deeply religious man, which is why i thought this book was pretty interesting, basically because faith and logic don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. i enjoyed his ideas in the book a lot, although the book is a transcription of lectures, which makes it a less enjoyable read than if it was originally written as a book.
• 
  Pito Salas

  Only the computer geeks out there will recognize this name, who is more or less the top computer scientist ever, who wrote some of the seminal books on the topic. It turns out that this book of all things is about biblical text interpretation and his insights from doing a lot of work. The beauty of this book is Knuth's writing and the way his mind works, which is a pleasure to behold.
• 
  John

  An incredible discussion about mathematics and religion. Very glad I read it.
• 
  Conor

  He makes Maths and Computer Science, particularly unusual ideas and applications with in them very interesting.
• 
  Ali

  The book is