Oren Patashnik

Oren Patashnik (born 1954) is a computer scientist. He is notable for co-creating BibTeX, and co-writing Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science. He is a researcher at the Center for Communications Research, La Jolla.

History

Oren Patashnik was a student of the famous Donald Knuth at Stanford University.

In 1980, he used 1500 hours of computer to prove that Qubic (a sort of 3-D tic-tac-toe) can always be won by the first player.

In 1985, he co-created BibTeX (a widely used bibliographical format and tool for LaTeX), and has developed it since.

In 1988, he assisted Ronald Graham and Donald Knuth in writing [1] the perennial 1989 college textbook Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science.

In 1990, he got his doctorate in computer science. His thesis paper was about "Optimal Circuit Segmentation for Pseudo-Exhaustive Testing" [2].

He is a researcher at the Center for Communications Research, La Jolla. He is Jewish [3], and lives in San Diego, California [4] with his wife Amy Patashnik [5]. He has three children, Joshua, Jeremy, and Ariel.

Oren is a master of puns, particularly those profiting from the pesky dualism of the words "discrete" and "discreet."

He has been known to enjoy a good leg of lamb.

References

• (PDF) "How to Win at Tic-Tac-Toe" (Mathellaneous, July 2005, University of Melbourne) - 11-page article with a section relating Patashnik's effort on Qubic
• Credits of Concrete Mathematics