Editing Knuth reward check (section)

==History==
[[Image:Knuth cod.JPG|thumb|right|Bank of San Serriffe reward check]]
Knuth started rewarding people for discovering errors in his books after he published the first volume of ''[[The Art of Computer Programming]]'' in 1968.<ref name="boss">{{cite web |last1=Knuth |first1=Donald |title=Knuth: The Bank of San Serriffe |url=https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html |website=Stanford CS Faculty}}</ref>
Initially, Knuth sent real, [[Negotiable instrument|negotiable]] checks to recipients. He stopped doing so in October 2008 because of problems with check fraud. As a replacement, he started his own "Bank of San Serriffe", in the fictional nation of [[San Serriffe]], which keeps an account for everyone who found an error since 2006.<ref name="boss"></ref> Knuth now sends out "hexadecimal certificates" instead of negotiable checks.

{{As of|2001|10|alt=As of October 2001}}, Knuth reported having written more than 2,000 checks, with an average value exceeding $8 per check.<ref name="ams_fea">Donald Knuth (2002), "[https://www.ams.org/notices/200203/fea-knuth.pdf All questions answered] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430030346/http://www.ams.org/notices/200203/fea-knuth.pdf |date=2019-04-30 }}", ''[[Notices of the American Mathematical Society|Notices of the AMS]]'' 49(3): 318-324.</ref> {{As of|2005|alt=By March 2005}}, the total value of the checks signed by Knuth was over $20,000.<ref>David Kestenbaum, {{cite news | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4532247 | date=2005-03-14 | title=NPR Interview: Donald Knuth, Founding Artist of Computer Science, at 5:42 | newspaper=NPR.org | access-date=2018-04-02 | archive-date=2018-04-03 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180403234644/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4532247 | url-status=live }}</ref> Very few of these checks were actually cashed, even the largest ones. More often they have been framed and kept as "bragging rights".<ref name="stanfordmag">Kara Platoni, "[http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2006/mayjun/features/knuth.html Love at First Byte] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060604115901/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2006/mayjun/features/knuth.html |date=2006-06-04 }}", ''Stanford Magazine'', May–June 2006</ref><ref name=history>The [http://www.tug.org/whatis.html History of TeX] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807163125/http://www.tug.org/whatis.html |date=2011-08-07 }}</ref>

{{cquote|Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text. Stupidity: Cashing that $2.56 check you got.|||Seen in a [[Slashdot]] [[signature block|signature]], quoted by Tess O'Connor<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.stgray.com/quotes/programmingquotes.html|title=Programming Quotes - stgray.com|website=www.stgray.com|access-date=2021-10-17|archive-date=2021-04-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417190013/http://www.stgray.com/quotes/programmingquotes.html|url-status=live}}</ref>}}