Donald Ervin Knuth was born on January 10, 1938 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father father ran a small printing press that also produced programs for the local Lutheran church. From this we can see that his father (Sun at 19 Capricorn 28) was a major influence in his professional life not only encouraging Professor Knuth in his s TeX and Metafont, digital typesetting programs, but his great Christian faith and love of the the organ.

While his two programs, still maintained, had niche appeal, it was his authorship of the Art of Computer Programming that is considered by most his standout accomplishment. That is because it literally lays out a graduate study program of computer science explaining the theories and algorithms that underpin back-office computing..

Laymen, non-technical readers, can enjoy Knuth in his 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated where he examines the Bible by analyzing every book’s chapter 3, verse 16 (chosen because of the Gospel of St. John’s For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. (King James Bible Version) . Each verse is accompanied by calligraphic art, created under the guide of master typographer Hermann Zapf (his work was picked up by Adobe for a song and incorporated into their InDesign desktop publishing software).

Tidbits

Prof. Knuth’s hobby is the pipe organ. He originally learnt the piano as his father was also the Church organist, but graduated in high school to the organ. He is member of the American Guild of Organists since 1965. He gives many talks on books from the Bible at his church, the First Lutheran church of Palo Alto.

His schedule is on his Stanford University homepage.