What is History?
Answers
Answer:
TeX (= tau epsilon chi, and pronounced similar to "blecch", not to the state known for `Tex-Mex' chili) is a computer language designed for use in typesetting; in particular, for typesetting math and other technical (from Greek "techne" = art/craft, the stem of `technology') material.
In the late 1970s, Donald E. Knuth was revising the second volume of his multivolume magnum opus The Art of Computer Programming, got the galleys, looked at them, and said (approximately) "blecch"! He had just received his first samples from the new typesetting system of the publisher's, and its quality was so far below that of the first edition of Volume 2 that he couldn't stand it. Around the same time, he saw a new book (Artificial Intelligence, by Patrick Winston) that had been produced digitally, and ultimately realized that typesetting meant arranging 0's and 1's (ink and no ink) in the proper pattern, and said (approximately), "As a computer scientist, I really identify with patterns of 0's and 1's; I ought to be able to do something about this", so he set out to learn what were the traditional rules for typesetting math, what constituted good typography, and (because the fonts of symbols that he needed really didn't exist) as much as he could about type design. He figured this would take about 6 months. (Ultimately, it took nearly 10 years, but along the way he had lots of help from some people who are well known to many readers here—Hermann Zapf, Chuck Bigelow, Kris Holmes, Matthew Carter and Richard Southall are acknowledged in the introduction to Volume E, Computer Modern Typefaces, of the Addison-Wesley Computers & Typesetting book series.)
Answer:
History is the study of the past. Events before the invention of writing systems are considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events.