  \def\MF{{\manual META}\-{\manual FONT}}%
\font\manual=manfnt % font used for the METAFONT logo, etc.
\magnification = \magstep1

\nopagenumbers
\parindent=0pt \parskip=6pt

%Jill said you wanted me to describe the things I've done that I am
%most happy about.

My main life's work has been to write {\sl The Art of Computer Programming},
a work-still-in-progress that attempts to organize and summarize what is
known about the vast subject of computer methods and to give it firm
mathematical and historical foundations. (The five volumes published so
far have been translated into many languages and more than a million copies
have been sold.) As a researcher in computer science, I am more or less
the ``father'' of several subareas called the analysis of algorithms,
LR$(k)$ and LL$(k)$ parsing, attribute grammars, empirical study of
programming languages, and literate programming. My best-known research
in mathematics is represented by the Knuth--Bendix algorithm for word
problems, the Robinson--Schensted--Knuth correspondence between matrices and tableaux,
and an analysis of the big bang that occurs in the evolution of random graphs.
As a university professor I introduced a variety of new courses into the
curriculum, notably Concrete Mathematics, and I supervised the dissertations
of 28 excellent students. And as a programmer, I wrote software systems
called \TeX\ and \MF\ that are used for the majority of today's mathematical
publications and now have more than a million users worldwide.

\bye
