Wrong Turn on the Dragon - Numberphile

The legendary Don Knuth on the Dragon Curve and learning from his mistakes.
More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓

Don Knuth's book "Selected Papers on Fun and Games" has an excellent chapter going into this in more detail.

Thanks to Erik Stens for helping out on this video.

NUMBERPHILE

Videos by Brady Haran

[zjjnhsf]

That's just the cutest thing ever! him and his wife creating this giant custom built dragon curve mosaic and even putting their signatures in… I guess the two of them are one happy geeky couple :)

[DrSpecialful]

I love the way the poem is mentioned and discussed at the start like a warm up, but then comes back to wrap the video up. Great work numberphile, lovely video.

[fleeb]

Holy moly... This is the same Donald Knuth of The Art of Computer Programming fame!

Spot on about erring, but less.  And a great object lesson on the matter.

[madforlorn]

Do you guys really understand what a freaking genius this man really is? My children and their grandchildren will read his books, and hopefully their great grandchildren will as well.

[beauxq]

There's no wrong turn. Don is just remembering incorrectly which end is the starting point.
His tiles are correct.

[adrianfisher]

It's always nice to see great men who also seem to be just as nice in person.

[Kaepsele]

Fun Fact: YOU DID NOT ERR!
It is a valid dragon curve but 90 degrees turned. That's the same figure as if you'd do the last fold in the wrong direction.

[wroth]

I discovered this as a kid when I stole a whole roll of bus ticket paper and started messing around with it. When I realised it started to make a more complex pattern the more I folded it I then cheated and did the next few steps in MS Paint.I had no idea it was a mathematical thing that had a name until I got to university.

[ZomB]

I can't believe this, my idol made a mistake. Don didn't make a wrong turn, so his conclusion about it is wrong! Take the image at 6:10, rotate the dragon 90 deg CW, and it will be exactly the red appearing curve. If Don had mistaken anything at all, it's swapping the begin and end of the curve.

[RinoaL]

that was a very nice story, i like how in the end you realize both of those pieces of art work together, as apposed to in the begining you think one conveys our process for figuring things out and the other conveying the precision of mathematics.

[MisterrLi]

Yes, as people have commented before me, he didn't make an error; the curve has this ambivalence property that different bends in the center lead to still valid dragon curves, just rotated differently! I had this curve on a sweater.

[brianpso]

That ending was brilliant! I love when I hear a story and the end hits me like a punch in the chest.

[deepspace]

Respect, this guy is the K in the KMP algorithm.

[tombrannan]

Don Knuth is an absolute genius, I'm so happy you got a chance to speak with him.  I can't wait to see more videos with him.

[frederikwulff]

Thanks for everything Don Knuth. Wrote all my ten University semester assignments using TeX and LaTeX. Brilliant!!!

[AndersKaseorg]

Hey Brady, you should ask Don Knuth about 0⁰! He wrote an article “Two notes on notation” explaining (among other things) why 0⁰ is defined as 1, rather than undefined like your “Problems with Zero” video claims.

[KindlyRequested]

If the world was made a bigger deal of people like him, there probably wouldn't be wars. This man is so peaceful and calm and intelligent, that it's a shame that i've come to met him only through youtube.

[OvyGr]

So basically his artwall and that writing on the wall say the same thing. Maybe it wasn't an error after all.

[CountlessColumns]

Awesome to finally see this guy speak after putting dozens of hours into an essay on him. Keep up the great work Brady!

[razielhamalakh]

Omigod Don Knuth. Omigodomigodomigod. I'm gonna go re-read "Concrete Mathematics" all over again.







What, did you expect "The Art of Computer Programming" joke? It's Numberphile!