The Story of O


CHAPTER 3:  A…  Rings      [remainder lost; probably "Abelian Rings"]
VERSE 16:      …bounded above and below, and totally dominated by… …the chain rule…

The text of this book is completely lost---the fragments above are all that survive.  However, there is no question of its authorship;  Knuth's creation (or at least popularization) of O-notation is attested in many sources.

Commercial records indicate that The Story of O was all the reage in Knuth's day, selling ten times more copies than his other books combined.

NOTE TO THOSE WHO CAME HERE SEARCHING FOR "STORY OF O":  You have reached part of a satire on computer scientist Donald Knuth.  There is nothing about BDSM here; this page is wordplay on certain mathematical use of the letter O.  Sorry to have wasted your time.  You'll have better luck here.

NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE:  I added the above after noticing that most of the hits on Knuth 3:16 start as Google searches for "Story of O".  Let me also share with you an interesting fact:  Of those who find the first page of this satire, a shockingly high percentage (yourself included?) immediately click on "The Story of O", skipping the other books.  What do you think it means?

And now, on with our story.

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Copyright © 20002 Larry Denenberg