Surreal Numbers (writing the first book) - Numberphile

Why HN readers recommended it

Recommended as a short, charming introduction to surreal numbers and to how Knuth wrote his book in under a week.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Numberphile

Topic

surreal numbers

Format

interview

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

4

Recommendation years in dataset

2016–2022

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Knuth has a nice book on Surreal numbers. [LINK] This interview is excellent [VIDEO] He wrote the book in less than a week, the book was just flowing for days and after that he couldn't write a thing. Then he realized he missed a detail …

• You can safely ignore it, the document is just a summary of Knuth's book. And it's a good one, I found it very helpful when I was working through the book. I found I had to read the material from several different sources to understand, …

• You sounds like you'd enjoy learning about the Surreal Numbers. [VIDEO] (15m video starring Don Knuth) [LINK] (1h15m video starring John Conway) It may be the case that you've already heard of the Surreal Numbers, but I remain confident you enjoyed learning about them. :)