Selected Papers on Computer Science

For a list of changes made between the first and second printings of this book, you may download either the errata file in plain TeX format (3785 bytes) or the errata file in DVI format (4740 bytes) or the errata file in compressed PostScript format (24363 bytes); the latter files were generated by the TeX file.

Here is a list of all significant changes that were made between the second printing (1998) and the third printing (2004); an asterisk (*) marks technical errors that are not merely typographical:

page xii, line 12

change `1-15' to `1--15'

*page 2, lines 16 thru 18

change "programmer was ... Babbage's" to "programmer may have been Lord Byron's daughter, A. Ada Lovelace, who worked with Charles Babbage to formulate precise instructions for the calculation of trigonometric functions on Babbage's"

page 5, line 4

change `November-' to `November--'

page 9, line 5 from the bottom

change `side-effects' to `Side Effects'

page 11, line 15

change `interactions' to `Interactions'

page 13, line 24

change `A detailed example' to `A Detailed Example'

page 16, Figure 1

seat 9 should be occupied by player F

page 22 line 5

the final right parenthesis should be larger, others should be smaller

page 23, Table 1

decimal points in the right column should line up

page 23, replacement for the bottom line

$\delta'(m,n)={1\over mn}\sum_{|A|<n}p(A)|s(A)|.$

page 24, line 2

change `$P(A)$' to `$p(A)$' twice

page 25, lines 22 and following

*[I made a serious error here, because (i) is false while I believed for many years that it is true; therefore I have rewritten this material. A corrected text will appear in the 3rd printing.]

page 26, lines 19, 23, 24, 33

change `0.7514' to `0.7515', `1.1790' to `1.1780', $d'$ to $\delta'$, and `1 5 3 7 4 8 2 6' to `1 5 3 7 2 4 6 8'

*page 27, line 22 from the bottom

change `$3e-8$' to `$2.5e-7$'

page 28, line 8

change `vol. 1' to `vol. 2'

page 29, line 15

change `1962' to `1963'

page 31, line 8

change `George Gamov' to `George Gamow'

page 32, lines 11 and 19

change `))' to `)'

page 41, line 18 from the bottom

change `966,482' to `166,482'

page 51, line 7 from the bottom

change `$y\le z))$' to `$y\le z)))$'

page 54, reference [1]

change `Gamov, One, Two, Three, ...' to `Gamow, One, Two, Three ...'

page 54, line 8 from the bottom

change `Probleme' to `Problem'

page 55, line 1

change `1953' to `1956'

page 55, line 4

change `1958' to `1960'

page 55, line 7

change `1962' to `1963'

page 56, addition to reference [24]

See also Larry Stockmeyer and Albert R. Meyer, ``Cosmological lower bound on the circuit complexity of a small problem in logic,'' Journal of the ACM 49 (2002), 757--784.

page 57, new paragraph at bottom

Functions equivalent to the arrow functions discussed at the beginning of this chapter were apparently first considered by an anonymous contributor to Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions 3 (Edinburgh: 1824), 568--572.

page 76, lines 21 and following

the printer's typesetting software got out of synch on this page!

*page 81, the displayed formula

change `3m^3' to `2m^3'

page 81, starting at the displayed formula

the printer's typesetting software got out of synch on this page!

page 85, line 5 from the bottom

add closing quotes after `organization,'

page 88, line 7 from the bottom

change `Khwârizmîan' to `Khwârizmian'

page 92, line 21

change `Khwârizmi's' to `Khwârizmî's'

page 95, line 5

change `student' to `students'

page 98, line 20 from the bottom

change `[10]' to `[11]'

page 102, line 12

change `p_{n-1,k-1}' to `p_{(n-1)(k-1)}' and `p_{n-1,k}' to `p_{(n-1)k}'

page 103, lines 3 and 5

the left parentheses after `exp' should be larger

page 107, line 3

change `\epsilon:' to `\epsilon: '

page 109, line 14:

change `connection).' to `connection.)'

page 112, line 12 from the bottom

change `Mathematics' to `Metamathematics'

page 116, line 4

change `former' to `latter'

page 119, line 5 from the bottom

change `$24\pi^2$' to `$24\pi^{-2}$'

page 136, line 28 and following

the printer's typesetting software got out of synch on this page!

page 146, line 6 from the bottom

change `mathematics.' to `mathematics.*'

page 147, new paragraph to close the chapter

*Note added August, 2001: After seeing an article by Paul C. Pasles in the American Mathematical Monthly 108 (2001), 489--511, I now am happily able to retract that statement. Pasles discusses a previously unpublished 16x16 magic square constructed by Franklin in 1765, a nontrivial arrangement that has intimate connections with binary numbers.

*page 156, slide 16

insert another line `0o2n0', leading to `0h0y3p0h0e2n5a4t2i0o2n0'

page 159, line 1

change `example, This' to `example. This'

page 167, reference [3]

change `pu-ter' to `put-er'

*page 172, line 7

change `Fred Gruenberger' to `Richard Hamming'

page 181

the printer's typesetting software was flaky on this page!

*page 189, line 19

change `1,26,40$\div$43,20$' to `43,20$\div$1,26,40'

page 193, line 10 from the bottom

change `interest obtaining' to `interest, obtaining'

page 194, line 2 from the bottom

change `1,600' to `1600'

*page 195, line 9 from the bottom

the formula should be $$\sum_{k=1}^n 2^{k-1} = 2^{n-1} + (2^{n-1}-1)$$

page 200, line 21

change `1,18,45,55,12' to `1,18,43,55,12'

page 202, references [6], [7], and [8]

change `Mathematik, Astronomie, und Physik' to `Mathematik Astronomie und Physik'

page 203, new paragraph at bottom of page

See also Christine Proust's interesting analysis of arithmetical errors that were occasionally made with high-precision numbers: ``La multiplication Babylonienne: La part non \'ecrite du calcul,'' Revue d'Histoire des Mathématiques 6 (2000), 293--303.

page 208, line 20, and page 212, line 18

change `Edvac' to `EDVAC'

*page 213, lines 13 and 14 from the bottom

change `short tank number $x$' to `long tank location $x$'

page 214, lines 3 and 4 from the bottom

change \cdots to \ldots in three places

page 222, line 6 from the bottom

change `1, Vol. 1' to `13, Vol. 1'

page 239, new copy for bottom of page

The author at the console in 1958. The row of switches at the top was Case's ``register 8004.'' (Photo by Case News Service.)

page 247, line 3

change `directions [7' to `directions. [7'

page 256, line 17

change `mathematical Society' to `Mathematical Society'

page 266, left column, line 15 from the bottom

change `hamiltonian' to `Hamiltonian'

page 266, right column, line 4 from the bottom

change `Gamov, George' to `Gamow, George Anton'

page 267, left column, Goldstine entry

change `222, 223, 224, 225' to `222--225'

page 267, left column, Gruenberger entry

change `171--172' to `171'

page 267, right column, Hamming entry

change `169--171, 173' to `169--173'

page 268, left column, line 8

change `Huber, Hartmut G. M.' to `Huber, Hartmut Gottfried Maximillian'

page 268, right column, line 5 from the bottom

change `Kruskal Joseph Bernard' to `Kruskal, Joseph Bernard, Jr.'

page 270, right column, new entry

Pasles, Paul Christopher, 147.

page 271, left column, new entries

Porter, John William, 119, 122.
Proust, Christine, 203.

passim, especially in the index

a few dozen minor refinements have also been made in the third printing

Selected Papers on Computer Science home page

Don Knuth's home page

Don Knuth's other books