Hacker News

Favorites Setup
☰
Comment by ape4 | original | Knuth reward check
[−]ape4 · 2026-10-10 Sat 16:28 UTC · link
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.
[−]JK-Swizzle · 2026-10-10 Sat 19:52 UTC · link
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”.

[−]rawling · 2026-10-10 Sat 20:24 UTC · link
Some of the parameters are bools. So somewhere between 2^62 and your figure...
[−]winwang · 2026-10-11 Sun 06:49 UTC · link
Why would anybody need more than `268 435 456 ^ 62` KB of RAM?
[−]_ph_ · 2026-10-11 Sun 10:37 UTC · link
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.