

Donald Knuth's 20th Annual Christmas Tree Lecture: (3/2)-ary Trees [video] - mushishi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4AaGQIo0HY

======
tcarey83
I think I might be stupid. I did not understand any of that. Am I missings
something?

~~~
deckar01
You probably just need a few prerequisites. Even if you did study data
structures, algorithms, and combinatorics previously, you would need to have
your head wrapped around the subjects to fully understand this lecture.

I would also keep in mind that Donald Knuth probably spent more than an hour
before understanding the topic.

Something that I think anyone can take away from this lecture is a story of
discovering new mathematical relationships. He starts with a function that
correlates to a logical problem, changes the inputs in an new (strange) way,
then studies the output to form a theory that connects to the original
problem.

The key was recognizing old results in a new problem.

~~~
cowsandmilk
> Something that I think anyone can take away from this lecture is a story of
> discovering new mathematical relationships. He starts with a function that
> correlates to a logical problem, changes the inputs in an new (strange) way,
> then studies the output to form a theory that connects to the original
> problem.

This type of mathematical exploration seems to be the story of his life. See
Quarter-imaginary base for him doing the same thing in high school.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-
imaginary_base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-imaginary_base)

~~~
jdnier
At one point in the video he suggests (with a laugh) the name imagin-ary to go
along with binary, ternary, n-ary, etc.

------
hacknat
Love this man.

