He Found a Typo on Page 1 of a Knuth Book—and Got the Legendary Reward Check
Knuth Reward Check
Thomas Hühn spent months double-checking an error he spotted in Donald Knuth's Computer Modern Typefaces before daring to report it. The mistake was on page 1, in the very first word. Knuth confirmed it and sent the coveted reward check, making Hühn part of computer science folklore. A later wrong guess still earned him a second check for a throwaway suggestion.
Preposterous to think that I could possibly earn one! His books have been combed through by thousands and thousands of people. Smarter people than I am. More patient people.
- nk_kolja
I wondered how you received a real check since Knuth has not been sending out real checks (as you have noted) for some time now, only to see that you explained it in the very first sentence and I had read over it, just like many people read over the error that you found in the first sentence of the book. Nice one! I wonder what the "Infinitely" was replaced with - probably not "Finitely" :)
I had received a check recently and wrote about it too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49286258
- CurtHagenlocher
The biggest shame of my life is that I had one of these and somehow managed to lose it.
- ape4
The error was saying that "infinitely many alphabets can be generated" but there is a finite number of parameters which have a finite range of values. If Knuth had just written "a humongous number of alphabets" he would be correct.
- WillAdams
It was a bit more than 25 years ago for me, check #790 for $2.88 DT 33, (143).
Really need to find another error or point of improvement so as to get the digital account --- I've been reading through TAoCP Vol. 4 Fascicle 7 on _Constraint Satisfaction_, but it's been slow going (though I did find out that it is intentional that he not list beginning of chapter quotes in the index).
- bariswheel
Sadly I think this is the end of an era. Someone should probably run an AI fact checker on this and send him the rest of any errors. Or he could change the nature or requirement of the reward, if somehow it can be proved the error could not have been found without a human's effort.