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A comment on Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023). Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023) by djtango on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @05:35AM (#38444372)
the hard ones are unsolved research problems?

I haven't read the book, so he poses research questions as exercises to the reader...?

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Re:Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023) by cschmidt on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @07:19AM (#38444937)
One level 50 problem was Exercise 1.2.6.63:

"Develop computer programs for simplifying sums that involve binomial coefficients"

Which was solved in the book titled "A = B":

https://www2.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/AeqB.html

or

https://www.amazon.com/B-Marko-Petkovsek/dp/1568810636

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Re:Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023) by kbob on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @05:42AM (#38444420)
He doesn't just spring them on the reader. Each exercise has a difficulty label. Level 50, IIRC, is for unsolved questions.
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Re:Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023) by Jtsummers on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @05:36AM (#38444391)
Yes. He has a system for assigning difficulty ratings to exercises. I don't have the books at hand, but the highest level were open research problems, potentially suitable for PhD work and the like.
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Re:Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023) by m463 on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @05:57PM (#38452730)
> He has a system for assigning difficulty ratings

He's like a depth-first system guy... I suspect he only planned the 7 volumes because it was a requirement to start out wide.

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Re:Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort? (2023) by elkekeer on Tuesday November 28, 2023 @05:39AM (#38444413)
Who wouldn't?
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