Knuth Reward Check

Re:Knuth Reward Check by ape4 on Saturday October 10, 2026 @12:28PM (#50034463)

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.

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Re:Knuth Reward Check by JK-Swizzle on Saturday October 10, 2026 @03:52PM (#50036521)

If I am reading this right, you can generate 268 435 456 ^ 62 alphabets.

I would say he could have even gotten away with “functionally infinite number of alphabets”.

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Re:Knuth Reward Check by rawling on Saturday October 10, 2026 @04:24PM (#50036779)

Some of the parameters are bools. So somewhere between 2^62 and your figure...

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Re:Knuth Reward Check by winwang on Sunday October 11, 2026 @02:49AM (#50040377)

Why would anybody need more than `268 435 456 ^ 62` KB of RAM?

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Re:Knuth Reward Check by _ph_ on Sunday October 11, 2026 @06:37AM (#50041679)

Sure. For practical purposes, the number is infinite. This is why I found the bug and the bug report so amusing: In "normal" language, the sentence is correct, but for a mathematician, especially such a renowned professor, it is an amazing blunder. Bonus points for being the first word in the document.

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