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All Science is Computer Science [Y/N]?
angainor sent in this interesting piece: "There is an article in NY Times which claims that in fact all science is computer science. He does some small talk about the fields of modern science where computers have been successfully used. But that's it. Does he really know what he is talking about? Read this piece, but don't be proud just because you are too a computer "scientist"." The writer has a good point about new advances in many fields being due to large amounts of computing power being applied.
Larry Ellision didn't go into computing.
He went into sales, and decided that he'd make the most money shilling computers.
I don't think that's being discounted, but simply using mathematics doesn't make one a scientist. A computer programmer uses mathematics in his programming in much the same way that a civil engineer uses mathematics in designing a bridge. Neither of them are really "scientists," but rather engineers who apply scientific knowledge to particular problems.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Most people who get CS degrees are the farthest thing from being actual computer "scientists". Real computer science is basically mathematics - whether it is finite automata or database normalization, it boils down to math.
On the other hand, computer programming, which is really what the vast majority of CS people do, is the farthest thing from science. If it were done with discipline and planning, you might be able to call it engineering, but really when you look at the way software is actually created, it can't even be called that.
So let's not flatter ourselves. The fact that you use computers as a tool in true scientific research, or you program computers to do specific tasks, in no way makes you a computer scientist.
If his reasoning held up one could, with a little effort, argue that computing (due to the work of Turing, Chruch, etc.) is based upon mathematics which, in turn (due to the work of Russell, Frege, etc.) is based upon logic which, classically speaking, is a branch of philosophy.
Thus everyone is doing philosophy. And indeed, the degree they get for their first bout of postgrad research is a Doctor of Philosophy.
Thus the whole world's turning into a bunch of philosophers.
Even then, we'd go back to the usual subject classifications just to tell people who 'did philosophy' in different areas apart from one another.
Basically, the dependence on computers underlies their importance, and consequently that of mathematics, logic and all the other branches of 'classical science' that computer science/computing-in-general draws its inspiration from.
John
John_Chalisque
There are (at least) three distinct areas where you need a term using words like computer and science. They are:
- Computing Science (or Computer Science) -- typical CS stuff; algorithms research, working on good models of computation.
Kind of a cross between pure mathematics and
Operations Research; lots of good stuff here,
but not really science in the hypothesis/test/conclusions sense.
- Scientific Computing The part of CS particularly focused on scientific applications. Numerical methods, especially for PDE solving or
simulation; efficient parallel (or serial) algorithms for typical science applications; maybe even including things like parallel IO .
- Computational Science Like theoretical science or experiemental science or observational science, this is science-of-choice
done using a particular tool; here, computer simulations or calculations. The first two were focused on computation, possibly with science as
an application; this one is focused on science,
with computing as a tool.
The distinctions are important, because otherwise its hard to talk intelligently about science and computing, as we see in the NYT article. If the article read ``All Science is Computational Science'', it'd be an overstatement but at least make some sense. As it is, the article is clearly nonsense.If "insightful" means "trying to use psychic powers of sight to guess what the article says", then sure, this deserves +100.
In fact, what the article says is that all sciences are becoming computer-dependent -- not "computer science" the field, but "computer-science" (as in, science done with computers), thus leading companies and researchers in other sciences to invest in computer science (the field).
I agree. They don't really mean "computer science", they mean "computer-science". (That is, not CS per se, but rather that science dependent on computers.) A lot of non-geeks don't really understand what CS actually is.
That said, the article _does_ imply that because of this need, science-based companies like Celera are beginning to invest in the actual field of computer science.
Please apply those ideas to gravity. :-)
Fun aside, unless someone comes up with the GUT, putting together the particle/field ideas from the quantumn theories of electro-weak and strong interaction with the geometric ideas from general relativity, I have serious doubts that quantumn mechanics (which one? :-) covers all of science.
As for math on the other hand, it is true that nearly all science involves math, but if you just go by the math equations, you can sometimes get non-physical solutions.
Of course. Mathematics provides a lot of consistent models (heck even a lot of consistent mathematics depending on how you choose the axioms), but picking that model that modells reality is physics.
On a side note it is rather interesting how many professors of theoretic computer science seem not to care much about quantumn computing.
The basic models from the theory of computation on which various famous theorems rely (including the halting problem) all stem on a model that models a machine governed by the laws of classical mechanics, which is only a approximation of course, as nature is mostly quantumn mechnical. Thus computation models that model a quantumn mechanical machine are supposed to show different computational behaviour.
When talking about such systems, the usual computer scientist gives you a look like you were talking about warp drives.
Science with Computers !~ Computer Science. A physicist might only be able to interface the large piece of technology he or she uses to do research, but the core piece of computer science research (algorithms) is either a minor element of the work or none at all. Same with so many other computer-enhanced works.
Computer science is the study of computing--the theory and practice that makes the machines work.
Physics (for example) uses computers as a tool to study the laws of the universe.
The former is interested in computers themselves. The latter is interested in computers as a tool to study the primary discipline.
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
Math is a useful *tool* for science, but science and math are in fact entirely different. Math is *true*
All science, sooner or later, is *false*. That's because theorems can be proven, but hypotheses can only be disproven
And I, being a bioinformatician, am one of the sorts of people the article is talking about! I did my doctorate in a microbiology department (doing bioinformatics really) and did a postdoctoral stint in a computer science department, so I can compare the two fields.
While I think that working in a computer science department gave me an interesting perspective on problem solving, the fact is that computer science really doesn't deal with making actual programs that do things, but with more esoteric things like proving problems to be NP-hard. The sorts of applied knowledge that is useful to other fields isn't really central to the aims of computer science as such. This isn't a slam on computer science -- you can make a similar claim between the basic science of microbiology and the applied knowledge useful for treating infections.
Sooner or later, all Sciences reduce to the study of Mathematics.
So, every scientific field builds on the advances of all other scientific fields.
So... what's the point???
--
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Perhaps for some theoretical non-human scientist that has a consciousness structured so that all facts are always explicit, who can simultaneously sustain conscious awareness of every level of analysis, and then communicate this to their peers, the idea behind this statement might be true. But insofar as human science refers to knowledge possessed by humans, this statement is incorrect.
Thus, all science is math. So we can lump all science together, but certainly not as computer 'science'. Actually, all science is auto mechanics, because mathematicians drive cars.
.07 micron process to chip manufacturers. I asked him how he achieved that elusive goal. He said, "I have a very good physicist."
Its been said that any discipline that has the word 'science' added to it isn't 'real' science. That phrase, of course, was no doubt coined by a physicist. But to gain a perspective on the nature of a given theoretical discipline, look at what the discipline in question has produced.
The study of physics has given rise to modern power systems, telecommunications, and nuclear power, to name just a few. Those engaged in study of biology have discovered selective breeding, penecilin, and the nature of how disease is spread and treated. Chemistry has given rise to most of the materials that make most of what we use in the course of our daily pursuits, including computers.
From the study of algorithms and data structures has come . . . Microsoft windows and office. An industry where 'standards' are all but non-existent and most of the products of of a quality so bad that they can no longer be sold. Software makers must get people addicted to their software and then charge for rent and repair. The computer industry is advancing not because software (algorithms and data structures) is improving, but because the hardware is improving. If computer hardware didn't improve, computer software wouldn't improve. Computer science has very little if anything at all to do with computer hardware.
And if you use the argument that computers are being used to design computers, remember that the Pentium IV isn't much faster than a pentium III - in fact for some tasks, its slower.
Physics and chemistry is what builds computers. I have a friend who owns a company that sells a
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Software engineering isn't Engineering either.
Uh. All science is not computer science. The article essentially says that a lot of scientific fields rely on massive computations performed by computers. Massive computations != computer science. CS has a lot more in common with logic and math, and formal theories of computation. Fundamentally, it has nothing to do with vanilla number crunching. Following the lead of this article, one might as well say "all science is engineering", because nearly all the sciences rely on well-engineered pieces of equipment to test their theories, gather their data, and a myriad of other things. I think a better way of phrasing it would be that 'computers have become a fundamental part of modern science (and modern life for most of the western world)' -Laxitive
Computers are *tools*. There is a science of how to make/apply these tools effectively, and there are some sciences that are "adjacent" to that science, but that is not the same as science being enabled BY the tools.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
God forbid you actually go into a field you enjoy rather than one in which you hope to become famous.
Besides, last I checked Larry Ellison didn't know much about computer science or genetic engineering.
The real problem with computers is now that they are so dang popular the real advances don't get the press that a new release of Linux 2.4 or a new Athlon does. People aren't interested in trying out new language paradigms because, gall darnit, if C was good enough for K&R it's good enough for them. People aren't interested in trying out new kinds of software because they're comfortable with the old kind.
It's kinda like saying there hasn't been any development in automotive technology when what you really mean is that the cool developments take decades to actually be implemented (if they ever make it) so you never hear about.
Pie in the sky fields like genetic engineering can fill their press releases with things like "some day we may be able to use this technology to cure congenital birth defects". More established industries like computers that already have shipping products have to be slightly more...pragmatic.
Has genetic engineering really made big advances in the past few years? Or is that just the spin that biotech companies have put on it? Or is it our own biases based on our ingrained awe for biology and contempt for mere machines? Even if it has made great leaps in the past, is genetic engineering likely to do so in the next few years as well? How can you even begin to quantify what counts as a "big advance" except through hind sight? I think it was Yogi Berra who said, "It's hard to predict things. Especially the future."
Computer science is a part of discrete math (actually it is the part of discrete math dealing with computation, things derived from lambda- and combinator-calculus). How could this be the same as, say physics, which (most of the time) deals with algebra?
Oh, I see, he means computer sciense, not computing sciense!
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Computers have become an incredible and indispensable tool in the advancement of all the sciences, but that doesn't make "all science computer science". One could just as easily say that "all science is quantum physics" or "all science is math" and it would have the same degree of truth, i.e. some but not enough to be considered a generally true statement.
That may be true (although I'd like to see you prove it), but would it be meaningful or useful? As another reply has pointed out, you're expressing a standard reductionist position, but it's one that isn't even held by most good physicists. For example, here's a quote from quantum physics professor Howard Georgi of Harvard (taken from here):
Another good intro to these kinds of issues is Murray Gell-Mann's book, "The Quark and the Jaguar". Gell-Mann's credentials as a quantum physicist are beyond reproach, but he is by no means a reductionist, and has a keen appreciation for the unique properties of complex systems - the jaguar in the title of his book is a metaphor for this.
Since many other physicists and philosophers more qualified than I have written on this topic, I'll restrict my reponse to a freewheeling, extended analogy: quantum physics can be compared to a CPU's instruction set, or "machine code". On top of that, we layer assemblers, and then compilers and interpreters for various languages. Using compilers and interpreters, we build various systems and applications. Since ultimately, all of these things are done using machine code, is it meaningful to say that all applications are "just machine code"? There's a sense in which this is true, but let's examine it further.
With the CPU analogy, we can do something we can't do in our single physical universe: we can take an application and compile it on a different type of CPU - a CPU with a different instruction set. Compiled for this CPU, the application still behaves identically. So by claiming that an application is machine code, we're clearly missing an important point, since the same application functionality can be achieved with completely different machine code. [Of course, both CPUs follow a more fundamental set of information theory laws, but that's not important to the argument.] The point is that complex systems exhibit "emergent properties", characteristics which arise from interactions between components of the system in question, and which can't be meaningfully analyzed, or even easily inferred, from the perspective of more basic, underlying systems.
To cut this short (well, shorter than it would be otherwise), I'm going to make a few leaps. Imagine for a moment that we could build a toy universe in the laboratory, with different physical laws than our own. Even though its physical laws are different, it's not impossible - in fact it's quite likely - that complex systems in that universe could share some of the properties of complex systems in our universe. To take an extreme example (as I said, I'm leaping), imagine an intelligence in this other universe, and assume we could communicate with it somehow. We would probably find that we share some basic characteristics with this alien intelligence. For example, it is a common characteristic of living systems that they have a strong bias toward survival, simply because those that don't, die out. This survival instinct is something that's not a direct or obvious consequence of quantum mechanics - it's actually rooted in simple logic (perhaps all science is logic?!)
Even if you could somehow come up with a QM model for the survival instinct, it would miss the point, since it's quite conceivable that a survival instinct could arise in a universe not based on QM - it really has nothing to do with QM. The survival instinct is just one example of an emergent property of complex systems - in this case a living system - that has little or nothing to do with the physical construction of the system.
AP, UPI (NY)
In a stunning announcement today, the American Automobile Association stated "All science is actually automotive engineering." A recent study has shown that over 98% of scientific developments required the use of a car. "Without these amazing machines, I'd have to walk 45 miles to work, up hill both ways!" one scientist was quoted as saying.
In a related event, the Carpenters Union announced "All science is actually construction." Nearly 100% of lab experiments take place in buildings that were built by builders. Without us, there'd be no labs, no checking of theories - in short, no scientific advancement." Theoretical mathematicians scoffed at the announcement, but other scientists confirmed that most labs are not in caves or other natural structures.
Meanwhile, representatives of the National Restaurant Association are preparing press releases to explain that all science is actually eating. 100% of scientists contacted by this reporter confirmed that they would be unable to do science if it weren't for food.
But... but... the bridge didn't collapse in the simulation! How would I know that people would put vehicles on top of it. Sheesh. Besides... it wasn't my fault... it was a software glitch. Blame the app-vendor.
;)
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I came here for a good argument!
No you didn't! No, you came here for an argument.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Most programmers use (formally or informally) the scientific process to debug software defects. They witness unexpected behaviour, create a reproducible test, postulate a cause, compare the new test results with the expected/control results. Are programmers now scientists when debugging, but not when writing new code?
cpeterso
The naive ignorance and general gullibility of the public never ceases to amaze me. Claiming that everyone who knows how to drive requires is also a mechanic does not compute. Very broadly speaking, there are 3 branches of mathematics which feed into computers
- statistical = accounting = infosys
- discrete = binary/automata = computer science
- continuous = scientific fields = computational science
Basically computers have matured to the stage where nowadays CSEE are nothing more than software engineering techniques, but the level varies according to the stage of hardware->firmware->software->wetware. (as Intel? CEO once said, hardware is nothing but frozen software). Computers are useful because they act as mental accelerators allowing you to do stuff overnight or in between coffee breaks or QUAKE sessions. But by itself, the theory is rooted in various branches of maths split into the business of computing (variations of the accounting equation), art of computing (Knuth/algorithms/etc) and the science of computing (complex systems/quantum effects/etc). For some strange reason fun and money seem to have an inverse relationship along this continuum.
For the average layperson who barely recognises how to access the internet (gee-whiz, moving text) the distinctions are superfluous but it doesn't help when the media confuses mathematics with their applications.
LL
As I see it, CS is just a tool to automate mathematics on computers. It will never replace nor bilogy nor physics nor mathematics.
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A soon-to-be Biologist
All science is math. In the theory sense, not just calculus and number crunching.
I thought so too, then I saw a paper by Calude, Dinneen, and Svozil.
Counterfactual Effect, the Halting Problem, and the Busy Beaver Function (1999)Worth mentioning that the NYT article was drastically better written and better researched than any link to somebody else's article that I've ever found on Slashdot.
Don't bash NYT just because people have no attention span.
-rt
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Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
Try reading it.
-rt
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Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
Well, my subject about says it all. Just because most scientists can and do use cars and pencils, we don't refer to them as racing drivers or pencil-operators.
"All scientists are programmers" would have been a truer headline, as would "All programmers are not computer scientists".
"If I were 21 years old," he said at a company conference in New Orleans, "I probably wouldn't go into computing. The computing industry is about to become boring. I'd go into genetic engineering."
:-)
This rings true to me. Much of Comp Sci (my chosen profession, though I suck at it) seems to have a lack of discovery and / or innovation these days, with the exception of nanocomputing. Much of the rest of it is innovation, not invention / discovery. How many Turings do we have in Comp Sci now?
Computing / computer science is a skill rather than an industry. While I'm a programmer, and have worked for a computer company (Acorn), I've also worked for a medical company and a couple of communications companies. I'm sure I could get a programming job at a medical company doing genetic research if I set my mind to it.
Secondly, how many people working in genetics are making fundamental discoveries, and how many are just grunts doing their job? For that matter, how many people's jobs in *any* field allow them to do blue skies research of the type that may lead to fundamental discovery?
I've long ago realized I had to separate my intellectual interests from my job. While I've been lucky to have extremely interesting work assignments, it's at home that I become the "mad scientist".
You're overestimating the potential impact of quantum computers. Unless something's changed since I stopped paying attention, QCs are Turing-equivalent -- no more, possibly less. At best, they're nondeterminstic (or do a good impression), but that's hardly a breakthough for theory. Everything we know about algorithms, formal languages, and computation still applies. On the other hand, they're hard to build, fragile, and almost useless as general purpose computers (I haven't yet heard developed proposal for I/O, which is vital to just about everything most computers do).
All science is computer science is true in as far as it goes. The more accurate assertion would be to say that computer science is a new way of looking at information theory (which pre-dates even Babbage).
For example, high energy physics is the process of deducing, without knowing the underlying properties of the Universe, what behavior we will see when we "crank up the heat" of the universe. If we knew the underlying properties, however, math could tell us the rest. This math, it seems, is more complex than the pre-Dirac world had thought. It does, in fact, seem to involve some rudimetary logic. Hence, the study of the universe is the study of an information system with logic, math and vast "memory", which is not unlike Turing's paper tape.
Computer science is math, and math is the Universe. As computer science expands and more generically encompases all of mathematics, the lines get grayer. If it is fair to say that all science is math (and I think it is), it is getting increasingly more accurate to say that all science is computer science.
Would Imho be more correct.
I got this quote from someone here on slashdot.
Ironicly its too true.
"The entire body of computer science can be viewed as nothing more than the development of efficient methods for the storage, transportation, encoding, and rendering of pornography."
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
A computer is a tool. Its use, like its construction, is a technique. In the early days of computing it made sense to pull together multidisciplinary teams from mathematics, physics, philosophy and engineering together to make the things work in the first place. That's been done.
There are still interesting things to be done in Physics and Engineering which may, in the fullness of time, lead to better hardware, and there are still interesting things being done in Mathematics, Linguistics and Philosophy which will, in the fullness of time, lead to better software.
But there is fundamentally no such thing as Computer Science.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
-- Multics
I bet most the scientists drive cars (or use public transportation) between their place of residence and their place of work. In fact, many important discoveries would not have been possible if they had no way to transport themselves to the lab. Does this make them car designers or mechanics?
I didn't think so.
--
SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
I'm no math wiz, but isn't CS basically all based on number theory, computability, and mathematics that were around before anybody actually assembled a physical computer (computers themselves were just thought experiments until they became a physical reality, right?).
And in turn, we just found that math is basically "full of holes".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Not just in science, but marketing, economics, manufacturing, and lots of other fields, people want huge numbers crunched in order to either figure out how something works, or to optimize some sort of process. For the past seven years or so you have seen the evolution of the computer as a communications device. Now it's time to do some computing.
The kind of person who is going to succeed in this new area is not the computer-centric person that used to rule in the Internet age. Society is now calling for people who can talk to scientists and experts in the field. This person needs to understand the field well enough to get a handle on the problem, and then apply his knowledge of algorithms, and raw programming ability to the task of solving the problem.
My advice is to learn all you can about algorithms, and have a solid understanding of math. If you can talk in mathematics, and write in code, you have a bright future.
All "hard science" is math. What is CS based on if not math?
Next you'll be telling us that, since art can be produced, manipulated, reproduced and analysed with the aid of computers, that all art is computer art.
Since speech can be produced, manipulated, reproduced and analysed with the aid of computers, that all speech is computer speech.
Since music can be produced, manipulated, reproduced and analysed with the aid of computers, that all music is computer music.
That is just ridiculous. Computers are simply our way of patching our brains to make up for the difficulty most of us have with performing sustained, repetitive calculations. Cept we haven't managed to 'open the source' to our brains and compile in the changes yet, which is why we're fucking around with these dynamically linked modules we call computers.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I am sorry, computer science is an oxymoron! A science is a field of study in which you attempt to deduce the laws of the universe. Sure the computer universe has laws...but they are mutable...all you have to do is hack them into the kernel. Computer "''''''''Science is not a science. It is however applied math, in the case of databases and encryption etc, or applied psycology in games or web pages etc... Computer science does not exist, therefore it cannot be the basis for all other sciences. Clonan
I use physics every day. Without it, I couldn't move, walk, live. Therefore, everything that lives, and indirectly or directly uses the results of some physicists work are now physicists.
I realize that the headline and last sentence of the article weren't really the point of the article, but they still made me take what the author said with a grain of salt. Basically, he said that many fields of science are using computers these days, nothing more revolutionary than that. Perhaps the headline was just an attention grabber, or just a grossly uninformed statement.
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Yes! That guy!
Exactly correct. Computer Science is the science of computers not the science of fungi. Now had the author said that all sciences were math, he may have had a point (not too sure about this myself, but I throw it out there).
Someone you trust is one of us.
Utilizing computational power is NOT computer science. Designing processors is computer science (and computer engineering). Designing computationally efficient algorithms is computer science. Analyzing algorithm complexity is computer science. It's hilarious that so many people equate computer science to "using computers." It's like equating "hacking" and "cracking."
Computer science (and computer engineering) lays the foundations for other fields to effectively use computers. Where would physicists and biologists be if significant time and effort had never been invested in developing programming languages, communication protocols and designing processors?
Anyway, that NYT article is just plain silly. The Larry Ellison quote tops it off. I'll agree that much of the computing industry is boring, but computer science is an academic field and it'll be a l--o--n--g time before CS begins to get boring. Go ask good 'ol George Johnson what he thinks of Artificial Intelligence...
Jason
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/weekinreview/25J OHN.html?pagewanted=all
there you go
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
"This rings true to me. Much of Comp Sci (my chosen profession, though I suck at it) seems to have a lack of discovery and / or innovation these days, with the exception of nanocomputing. Much of the rest of it is innovation, not invention / discovery. How many Turings do we have in Comp Sci now? "
I disagree. Computer science is about to get much more interesting in the way you mention, when quantum computing starts getting taken seriously. The entire field of algorithms needs to be rewritten for quantum computers. The fields of cryptography, compiler design, languages, and even theory of computation need to be rewritten. NP-hard doesn't necessarily mean what it used to (it doesn't make a problem intractable with quantum computers). The whole heirarchy of decidability has to be looked at a litle differently.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Most (if not all) sciences now use computers as tools, but that's no different from using calculators as tools, or calculus as a tool, or statistical analysis as a tool. That does not mean that all sciences are mathematics or engineering. Physicists now need to be able to write code and use computers in fairly sophisticated ways, but they do NOT need to be computer scientists. Computer scientists do NOT just write code; they're generally developing more theoretical stuff, such as the theory of computation, or artificial intelligence, or advanced operating system design. It would be like calling someone who uses physics on a daily basis (gee, pretty much everyone, though I had in mind someone like a radiologist) a physicist.
The difference is between using tools and theories (which does not make someone a scientist in that discipline, in this case computer science), and DEVELOPING those tools and theories, which is the job of scientists in various disciplines.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
"all your science belong to us"
yeah right
Actually, an increasingly common use of computer simulations is for a theorist to quickly run a model and then fix his theory as required. For example, the NYT article mentions cosmology simulation, which due to the dearth of (and questionable reliability of) observational data is almost entirely simulation only. And yet it is enough to drive the theorists on, until a new batch of real observational data arrives. Everyone would agree that the simulation is not true experimental data, but it is still data. The old cliche that the lines are blurred is true again in this case. Simulations can provide the same serendipitous results as real data and can thus inspire new theories in the same way.
-dwj
I completely agree. "Computer science" was probably an unfortunate (deliberate?) misnomer in this case, bringing down the wrath of many CS veterans of slashdot.
You note the lack of innovation in CS. I have no idea if there are some universities out there who really don't treat CS as "training for a tech job" but I've been getting that impression. CS theory seems to be languishing, with a few valiant attempts on the "is P=NP?" problem appearing now and then with predictable results. Even quantum computing hasn't really rocked the boat yet. There seems to be some work in computational linguistics but it didn't seem like such a fruitful field. I might even go so far as to say these are all true, and that's because CS is an early science. Would anyone care to correct this impression? I'm anxious to hear about counterexamples. I'm another one of those "computer science physicists."
-dwj
Right, I wasn't trying to suggest simulation replace real experiments and actual observational data. I do not have access to the journal you've quoted so I hesitate, but it does sound rather conceitful. Dozens of theories have been invalidated by what actually happened instead; I need not give examples.
On the other hand, some theories are hamstrung by the requirement of checking millions of data points (eg., galaxy clusters--my previous work, QCD, etc) and to make at least some progress practically demands the integration of the computer into your theoretical work. There is the risk that you've been wasting your time when the real data waltzes in, but that seems to be the danger with any theory, and the short time spent on simulations (relative to, say, waiting for the next satellite to launch) combined with improved quality (due to fresh contributions from the CS field) tend to justify the effort. If at least one of these efforts turn out to be the real thing, then it is probably worth it.
-dwj
Interesting.
As much as I believe computers are simply tools, physics are just tools - almost everything is tool.
Look around your room - what is NOT tools? The can of Coke and the orange. Makes me wonder - does saying "[insert your noun] is just a tool" serve any practical purpose at all?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
He'd be trying to convice us that'd be so much better (for his profit margins) if we gave up on being individual humans and settled on being tapeworms in the gut of his overpriced "host humans".
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Dijkstra
I'm getting tired of the confusion about what is and isn't Computer Science. Software Engineering is not computer science. I am a Software Engineer, am I also a Computer Scientist in that role? To a very limited extent, yes. I do use tools and methods from computer science on occasion, but rarely in any deeper a fashion than a carpenter uses physics. Yes computer science permeates every facet of what I do, but I am not doing Computer Science. Now in my own work I do take the role of Computer Scientist, many times without even touching a computer.
I've always made the distinction between the practical and the theoretical when it comes to computers and Computer Science. Sure the line may be blurry, and it's difficult (if not impossible) to be a purely practical person without having a grounding and theory, and vice versa, to be good at what you do at least.
Personally I believe that Computer Science, as theory is of higher order than the practical. However, this is not to say that the practical is bad. I pride myself on my, and give others credit for their, practical skills, but it is not Computer Science.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
n. Abbr. e., E., eng.
The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.
I'd say that pretty much sums up Software Engineering.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Every science deals with the interaction of particles. Without our knowledge of physics, computer science would be void in the real world; rather, it would remain a branch of theoretical math.
|/usr/games/fortune
...and if you can't blind them with science, baffle them with bullshit.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Computers are only a tool
>There are many math theories and acts that just aren't physical in the real world.
Physics could be a subset of math and satisfy:
"Physics is math".
One of my chemistry professors once claimed that everything boils down to chemistry. One of my physics professors said that in acuality, everything boils down to physics. I'll always remember those two statements, but the statement that I find rings truer than those is one by Galileo himself:
The book of nature is written in mathematical equations.
A rough quote from memory, so excuse me if it's not exactly correct. It seems that everything can be expressed in mathematical terms. In a sense, it is the mother of all sciences. Does this mean that all science is computer science? Possibly. Computers, at their core, are simply playing with numbers. Heck, there's a reason that it's called a computer. Saying that all science is computer science might also be giving too much credit to the computer itself, if you ask me. I believe a more honest statement would be "All science is mathematical in nature. Computers are mathematical devices. Therefore, assuming an appropriate computer, all science can be expressed in computational terms."
computer science (programming) is more like engeneering, you build something, and work out the kinks through logical analisis. Science is formulating a hypothesis and running experiments to validate your theory (scientific method). I don't know about you, but when I start coding I don't go to prove anything, I just want to make something and make it work.
:wq! DOH!
According to websters, science is: Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained truth of facts.
Physics is science, you learn about laws already ascertained and go about smashing atoms to invent new laws.
Biology is science, you learn about various species, and invent things like darwinism.
Although I haven't actually read the article, I'm going to assume these scientific strides are things like cloning, genetically modified species and stuff like that. Those are infact bio-engeneering tasks, not really science. To make a goat that makes spider silk is a lot like making a complex protien or a program. You have to take what you know, and apply it, if it doesn't work kill the goat and try again. (:
In conclusion: Science is observation. Engeneering is making/doing. Programming is engeneering.
Roy Miller
--Roy
There have been many comments that say all science is math. There have also been quite a few that say all science is physics. I think we should just ignore this article and simply say that (all science == all science). A marine biologist isn't going to have a new insight into string theory, and a mathmetician isn't going to fix the problem with cloned animals having damaged DNA. Every science is its own realm, and in order to be successful, you often have to draw from other sciences. It's that simple. Afterall, it's not the computer scientist that comes up with new ideas in neurobiology, it's the computer scientist that aids the neurobiologist in building a computer model of his theory.
/whois John Galt
Today is the closing of a parenthesis opened before this sig, before this story, before this existence that is me (as if
Computer Science is a mathematical field, not a scientific field. Not sure who coined the name, but it is definitely a bad one. Computer science has more to do with proof-theory, than any scientific occupation.
I think he's ridiculing Slashdot and the various people submitting AND passing articles like this.
And I think that ridicule is justified.
Because of the bad Slashdot title AND blurb, many of the posts would be a waste of time.
Slashdot is often a waste of time given the "quality" control in the articles...
I don't really care if the user posts are stupid, but the articles should be much better.
Link.
But this isn't computer science because our goal is to learn about astronomy, not to learn how computers work.
Computer science is the science of computer and technology. Other science like social science, quantum science, political science are totally different. Just because a poly-sci proffessor uses his computer to type up a term paper does make him part of the computer science realm.
I forget what Science Fiction I read that in...
But the running joke was that a group of scientists decided that since
all human thought was produced in the brain, then all science must perforce
become related to a Neurological-function... Hence all science is actually
Neuro-Science. And if you were actually working with/on the brian, it
would of course become Neuro-Neuro-Science. Run that Neuro-joke
ad infinitum, and you get the general Neuro-idea of how silly that Neuro-propostion
turns out to be.
I do systems work for a math deptarment at a large university. One of our Professors is very involved in using computation and simulation to study various bio-medical phenomenon. Simulation is an important part of her work. By taking experimantal data, she can create simulation models that closely approximate the "real" world. Experimental data is needed to create these models, and then to validate results, but simulation is useful for running multiple senerios to see where to look for experimental research. I don't think that simulations will ever totally replace experimentation, but it will increasingly focus it, and reduce the amount of experimentation necesary to gather specific data.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The role of computation in science is magnified beyond its usefulness because futzing with computers is fun, easy, and something to do when you're out of other ideas.
One example is global climate modeling. The predictions of these computer models are cited all the time, but no one really knows if they're putting out valid results or garbage. (Since these models can't predict the weather 10 days out, one must wonder about their century-term results.) That's not real science.
Another example, I'll bet, is the computational archaeology mentioned in the article. It is easy to imagine these guys assigning variables to a lot of inexactly quantifiable phenomenon, writing equations for things that are not precisely equatable, and plugging in estimates for unknowns. Garbage in, garbage out. That's futzing, not science.
(For that matter, has the Santa Fe Institute ever produced any useful science? As far as I can tell, they're a sensational press release factory.)
One is often lead to believe that these scientists sit down and say
While there are exceptions, most scientists work with computer scientists. The guy conceiving of the research is unlikely to be the guy looking for that extraneous malloc() with no matching free()anymore than the Auto company designer who says "Hey let's control everything with little computers." is likely to be the same guy that choses the microcontroller and Bus architecture used.
Things are getting out of hand this way a lot. It used to be someone claiming to be very knowledgable about computers understood them in general. These days, give a guy a web browser and a way to get to the internet, and he figures he has a real good understanding of computers. Make the OS linux and poof
I guess what I'm saying is that all science is computer science like all drivers of new cars are computer users. It sounds good, until you think about how the implied meaning doesn't map remotely to the literal interpretation of the thought.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
For example in environmental sciences (integrating biology, chemistry, earth sciences and everything that may be useful), where you are actually trying to figure out how real-world systems work, the most advanced use of computing is for implementing models to check if your understanding of the matter matches reality. In order to build working models, you're pulling together knowledge from all kinds of disciplines, from observation and experiments. Computers only needed because spreadsheets come in handy.
I can't think of any problem in that realm, where our knowlege would be limited by CS-related problems.
>The Aztecs had an advanced number system, and No they didn't. You're thinking of the Maya. The Maya were pretty much more advanced than the Aztecs in all ways, but people think more of the Aztecs because they're in Civ2 and the Maya aren't ;)
All it takes is nukes and nerves.
In traditional physical sciences like Physics, the grunt-work is still being done by the experimentalists. Granted, they use computers for data gathering and analysis, but as such computers do not provide any raw information.
Indeed.
I stopped investing in IT businesses last year when I got the feeling that the bubble was about to burst. And how right I was.
Most of my money is now in biotechnology and genetics.
At our university the Physics department is swamped every spring by senior Physics students who would like to come to work at the department. About 70% head straight for the computational physics lab. I've interviewed a few of those (after they got rejected by the comp. phys. lab) and asked why they named computational physics as their #1 option. My observation was that -- aside from them knowing nothing about the scientific process -- they believed that computational physics is Physics nowadays and that experimental work is mostly unnecessary. Very worrying when the future physicists might end up trusting more the results they get from models than those obtained from the real world...
I think the real issue is all the new advancements in science is in part because computers are being used to solve complex math problems. I believe the old saying goes: All biology is chemistry. All chemistry is physics. All physics is math.
I'm a computational scientist, so I'm one of those people that actually do science using computers. The problem is that there are a large number of interesting systems that can only be modeled in crude approximation. (Your computational costs go to infinity much faster than you can improve your model.) These are called 'complex systems', and there is theoretical reason to believe they can't be modeled. Computer scientists rarely understand real science, and I suppose that's the reason for this belief in particular.
... what this means is all scientists need low- or no-pay grad students and interns to handle their mundane coding and computer baby-sitting, and realize that they can never compete with private industry for those with solid coding skills (more art than engineering - and it _should_ be so - but that's a different discussion), so they figure they'll offer a small fraction of their prestige: handle my essentially-clerical computing administration and instead of calling you my clerk - no, secretary - no, administrative assistant - no, junior associate bio-genetic engineer! Yes, you'll be recognized as a high-prestige real scientist (TM)!
And in five or ten years, you may even get a byline as the last name on a published paper in some really, really obscure journal.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The Logical flaw is supposing that all computation is computer science.
There is the science of the problem you are trying to solve, and then there is the science of the tools you use to solve the problem. The two are not the same.
Solving the Human genome is different than programming the computer to analyse the data.
but there is an overlap. In the same way that it helps to have business and accounting experience to be a systems analyst in a business. Although alot of system analysts do not have this either.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Litgation in Computer Science
Do you suppose this means all fields of science are going to end up in court, due non-preformance?
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
All Science is a product of the mind, and as such the common ground is a matter of understanding the mind in what we do in all that we do, regardless of what and where.
A NEO overview of becomming aware!
Knowledge Navigational Mapping and the Virtual Interaction Configuration
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
You seemed to have forgotten to mention what you posted is copyrighted by the New York Times. Give credit where it is due! Hey, even better, if you really had to be directly redundant, why not just post the link, like the slashdot article did?
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
My initial gut reaction was thinking this writer also programs or has some vested interest in the Computer Science. A reaction of seeing an example of Arrogance and Ignorance in effort to claim CS IP rights over all industries and fields of science. But in reality CS hasn't yet removed the mystical magical witchcraft source-ary of it's fabricated over-complexity to really know any better.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
That's why, when considering a career in the sciences, you really need to weigh interest a lot more heavily than the job market. Right now I'm seeing a lot of people around me trying to jump into fields that are "hot" at the monent. But, like you said, what's hot and what's not will change before they're done with their schooling.
That's why I chose an area of study that might never be hot [probably because it's so complicated that it makes normal biologists' heads swim (signal transduction and biochemistry)], but happens to interest me greatly. True, I'll probably never make $100,000+ a year. But at least I'll always be happy doing what I do. And after living a student's lifestyle ($8,000 per year), even $30,000 per year will seem like the high life.
---
4-star general in a one-man army.
Now that genome projects are hot stuff, people have started to take a good look at the biotech industry. And if they think what's happening now is exciting, wait until they see what's in store.
I'm willing to bet that the protein folding problem will be solved in the next 50 years. Soon after, we should start to see protein design hitting its stride. What does this all mean?
Take a bunch of E. coli bacteria. Use the genomic info you already have to insert a new gene for ProteinX that you've designed. The bacteria then make ProteinX in a huge vat, churning out billions of copies of the protein you need within a few days.
Think nanomachines are hot stuff? ProteinX is only a few nanometers in diameter, has no conventional moving parts (just changes in conformation) and can be regulated just be adding different chemicals into the mix.
OR
Think spider silk is strong? ProteinX could be modified silk fibrin, designed for more elasticity and higher tensile strength.
The sciences will always come out with incredible discoveries. Companies that use these discoveries will always have stock that's worthwhile to own. Maybe in the short-run things might dip, but it'll always make a come back.
---
4-star general in a one-man army.
Not quite there.
Science is based on figuring things out in the real world: for example, the structure and behaviour of subatomic particles, the structure and behaviour of neurons in the brain, etc. This is done in part by building models using the tools of math.
However, I'd like you to prove to me that one can derive quantum physics (or the structure of a neuron, or their interconnections in the brain) based on math. Math can be done completely on paper (or on a computer) and as long as all is self-consistent it is proven to be "true". But there is no true science until you have experimented with behaviour of real things in the real world.
As my physics teacher said again and again, all science is physics!
Computer science is different from all other form of science so much that some have argued that it is not science at all. In computer science you already know what you can and can not do computation yes non-computation no. The whole field is really centered on implantation of computation witch many believe is more engineering than science. Another thing that makes computer science different is that any experiment done to prove anything is almost immediately accepted or rejected because they are 100% replicable with the running of one program. This is almost never the case in all other fields of science. The best thing to happen to the field of computer science is the advent of quantum computers. In the end there is little to research as pure science in the field of computer science, right not we have this. If a problem is computational it can be done on a computer if not it cant the thing that is argued is if the problem is computational. Which make the field a little more like theoretical mathematics than anything to do with computers. The fact that other fields of science use computers and software there for computer science is like that all science is physics. Not true.
Back in the 19th century, mathematics was considered the "handmaiden of the sciences". This was before "pure" math could really be used for anything useful (like crypto today), so for math to be useful it had to be in the service of some other discipline.
It seems like a lot of the research in CS is geared toward solving other peoples' (that is, fields') problems, and that CS is in the same sort of role. Of course there's "purely" CS research in areas like networking and theory, but a huge amount of work is figuring out how to work with bigger data sets or new data types, how to do compute tasks faster or more efficiently, how to secure or share resources, etc. To demonstrate that these things are being done well, and that the attempts are worthwhile, of course they have to be done with some kind of problem or data that matters to someone.
I'm not sure whether it's good or bad to be the handmaiden (and yes, it's definitely a sweeping generalization to classify a whole field that way, of course).
Jamie
Tip: Larry Ellison is always spouting stupidities that superficially "ring true", trying to paint himself as a visionary. Do not listen to the man, he's more interested in looking like a visionary than in what will really happen in the future.
include $sig;
1;
As a graduate student in sociology, computing and programming is central to my work. This doesn't mean, however, that I practice computer-science. Computers are simply the tool which I used to conduct my work.
In my experience, most academics in the natural and social sciences are fairly good programmers. Among social scientists, we've all had to learn a variety of program-specific scripting languages (e.g. SPSS and SAS) in order to conduct our analyses. But few of us would count as (or consider ourselves to be) "hackers" or "compter scientists". And, while I've collected a number of programming languages over the years, they are simply the various tools that I use to collect and analyze data. Sed and awk are indispensible and Python has proved quite useful. I write all my papers in LaTeX and expect that I'll eventually learn enough Lisp to tame Emacs. But I'll probably never need C.
Even my father, who, as a graduate student at Stanford during the 60's, was writing Fortran programs in order to conduct his statistical analysis, has never considered himself a programmer. Fortran, too, was simply a tool.
We don't care -- or need to care -- about the theory underlying computing.
With all of the above being said, there is a current development within the social scientific academic community that cast further doubt upon the article's premise -- and one that I find rather worrisome. Rather than increasing, the programming abilities of the academic community (at least within the social sciences) may be declining. And, I believe, that this could have very serious consequences.
Being raised on GUIs, current graduate students are being taught to point-and-click their way through analysis. SPSS, for example, has, over the years, built up a rather nice nice GUI front-end. But, as in all GUIs, the SPSS front-end is less powerful and less flexible than the underlying scripting language.
But students aren't being taught the scripting languages. As a result, many students don't know what their programs are capable of or how to conduct complex analysis. I suspect that many students don't even realize that they can conduct more complex analysis! And, of course, most of the programs used to conduct complex analysis are entirely text based. What I find most worrisome, however, is that the GUIs serve to insulate the user from the analytical process -- as a result, students may be failing to understand and appreciate the statistical theory underlying their analysis.
As social scientists, we are not computer scientists; we don't need to understand computer theory. We do, however, need to understand statistical theory.
I'd take the risk of saying that computer science or specifically the ideas of information theory and computation are the fundamental ideas of the universe. If you get an immediate desire to throw up after reading those words I suggests taking a look at "The Bit and the Pendulum" by Tom Siegfried. There was a review recently in NY Times if you wanna search for it. This isn't as wacky as it sounds if you consider the experiments where the speed of light was changed under the restriction of allowing zero information to be carried by that light.
Wait, they were all "pencil and paper" scientists as well. Damn, were they well-educated or what?
And Archimedes was a "stick and dirt" scientist, right?
Give me a break. The computer is a tool. A very powerful tool, in fact indispensible now, but a tool nontheless. I'm an Electrical Engineering researcher, and I spend a lot of time writing computer programs for my research in a variety of languages. Please don't call me a Computer Scientist, though, or I might just throw up. I use oscilloscopes a lot too. Does that make me an "oscilloscope scientist"?
Computer science is a well developed discipline in which very smart people devise new ways to solve problems. People in other fields, like me, use what computer scientists come up with. We are not computer scientists in our own right.
Science using computers is not computer science. It just doesn't work that way. Computer science is theory relating to how computers work. On the other hand, most sciences just use computers as a tool. Back when scientists just used hand calculators, was it referred to as calculator science? No, I don't think so.
Last month a leader in the software industry, Larry Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, predicted that the focus of the intellectual excitement will shift again.
"If I were 21 years old," he said at a company conference in New Orleans, "I probably wouldn't go into computing. The computing industry is about to become boring. I'd go into genetic engineering."
This rings true to me. Much of Comp Sci (my chosen profession, though I suck at it) seems to have a lack of discovery and / or innovation these days, with the exception of nanocomputing. Much of the rest of it is innovation, not invention / discovery. How many Turings do we have in Comp Sci now?
Now genetics, this stuff is freaking AMAZING. My girlfriend is going into it, and I'm regularly amazed by the discoveries that are being made in the field. It may well be that computer science is no longer the frontier of human knowledge; I don't know.
The article is, of course, dead wrong. Mr. Johnson needs to have his head examined if he thinks that just because computers are used as tools in many professions, that thereby all professionals are computer scientists. He wrote an article for the NYTimes online, probably using a word processor - thus by his definition he can claim to be a computer scientist.
The thing he's dimly perceiving, but failing to adequately put into words, is how computers have become ubiquitous in the professional and academic world, and how a working knowledge of how to USE computers is fast becoming utterly essential. However, he fails to see the vast difference between being a competent end user, and being a discoverer, an inventor, a creator-of-new-things in the computer world.
So all in all, the article is only interesting in that the author accidentally brings up something else that's worth thinking about: computers and their involvement in genetics research. Now what I want to see is more development in the field of biological computing... the day when genetics and microbiology combine with comp sci and nanotechnology / nanorobotics, will be a portentuous day.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
One fine day, all the organs and body parts were having an argument about who was the most important.... You know the story and who the winner was.
All science is NOT computer science.
Computer science is composed of all *other* sciences.
The true statement should be: "All science is MATH!!!"
"Back off man, I'm a scientist."
"Nothing shocks me, I'm a scientist."
My wife is a physicist and hates computers (or that damn machine as she calls them).
If she sees this I am going to catch some serious shit.
Great, now I can't read / until this story gets pushed off the front page.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
Not all science is computer science. For example I'm a CS major and I don't know crap about biology. If CS was biology I would know biology, and I don't. I think what is trying to be said here is that all problems in other sciences can be translated into CS problems and be solved by coding software. However then you run into the old P/NP problem that some things CAN'T be solved with computers. But most scientific problems in engineering, chemistry, especially physics can be solved by coding software to solve it. It's nothing we didn't know before.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I can only offer this without proof: All science is, rather, mathematics. Even computer science.
I am a physicist-turned-computational-scientist turned-computer-programmer. Along the way I found that there is no substitute for clear thinking. Computer simulations generally add to the confusion, because they provide new facts. This makes the demand for clarity even greater. As for 'computer scientists', I agree totally that few of them seem to understand real science. Often they don't even understand computers. They do, however, understand the funding process and the proposal cycle. Me, I got myself a fountain pen, a large supply of ink containers, a bunch of notebooks, and a fair amount of quiet thinking time. The last was the hardest to find. I may not win a Nobel prize but at least I am no longer confused.
I remember a different time, not so long ago, when all science was Slide Rule Science. And my grandaddy told me of a day when all science was Abacus Science.
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
Check out this article at CNN. The attempt to ban evolution in "schools" goes on. My favorite quote - "If we teach kids that they were descended from monkeys, don't you think they'll act like monkeys?"
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
...when "non-CS/engineering" fields begin to realize that computer programming is as relevant to biology, neuroscience, genetics, psychology, etc., as it is to math, physics, EE, ME, etc.
In grad school, I often wondered why programming courses weren't required as they are in engineering programs. Perhaps this will change soon.
Write your local universities and tell them about your problem.
In the meantime, look for statisticians.
that must mean when I was 8 and I got one of those home science kits for my birthday that I was actually doing computer science. I gotta update my resume for that extra 5 years of CS experience I have now. Big raise here I come!
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
This is just an over simplification. Just because they can be used in unison, don't not make them the same. It is somewhat like claiming all science in the US is really based on the fundimetals of English because of the papers scientists write.
All ye all ye outs in free!
I don't have a clue how DNA works or how to chart Planetary motion. But given the mathematical models; I can probably code it and tell you whether or not it is an intractable problem. All CS? Not quite.
To me, a computer is just a tool, unlike the throngs of posts here that report the (surprise!)let-down after they are no longer amazed by technology. Someone telling me that chasing fruitflies around an office or trying to work with genes to make glow-in-the-dark kittens is COOL, well, they need to get a grip. We need to face the idea that all jobs are boring and suck, and that they will be cool for about a year, then it is old news. Even movie stars sit around all day waiting for someone to get the lighting right, and get bored too. I am a newsman, we have slow days, even in a business that changes daily, or even hourly. BIG SECRET: Make sure you love your coworkers and your job, and you'll be fine.
Well, I could write a 50 page article proving that the Earth really is flat, but I'd rather do something more worthwhile like playing Doom for the 2X10^50th time.
Just because a scientific entity uses a computer as a tool does not mean that the entity is being redefined as computer science. An accountant uses a spreadsheet to do balance sheets and the like, does that mean they are computer scientists? If it does, im switching to an easier major(already a CS person) that still uses computers because according to the article I would still be a computer scientist.
-Life is a Journey, --Not a Guided Tour! ---Trust me, I've already looked for the guide book.
I have to disagree with the popular idea that these days "everyone is a computer person" - which is clearly the intended sentiment. I find computing fascinating for exactly the converse reason. A good computer person (be that computer scientist, programmer or whatever) is someone who is able to command a comprehension of a wide range of disciplines and identify informatic problems in foreign subjects and to establish solutions.
Sure, many of the sciences out there actively use computer modeling to get the job done. Especially the theoretical branches. So what? I guess that *could* be considered "computer science," but only if you acknowledge that there are such things as "philips head science" and "pencil and paper science." Computers are just tools for the hard sciences.
The Aztecs had an advanced number system, and developed many of the algabraic formulas we use today. They were also amazing astronomers who made many wonderous discoveries about the heavens. All without the help of a computer.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
I think there is a difference between computer scientists and scientists that use computers.
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silence is poetry.
TOKYO, Japan -- A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 has struck southwestern Japan, killing two people and injuring dozens more. An 80 year-old woman was killed under a collapsing concrete wall, said Yoshinobu Tanimoto, a fire department official. In neighboring Ehime prefecture, a woman fleeing her home died after roof tiles crashed down onto her head, said national police official Tsuyoshi Iwashita. Latest reports said nearly 90 people had been injured, with about 20 hurt when a gymnasium wall collapsed at Shimizugaoka Senior High School in the Hiroshima suburb of Kure, police told the Kyodo news service. The quake, centered some 60 kilometers (38 miles) below ground, struck at 3:28 p.m. (0628 GMT) near Hiroshima prefecture, about 687 kilometers (429 miles) southwest of Tokyo, the Meteorological Agency said. The Hong Kong Observatory said the epicenter of the quake was about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) south of Hiroshima city. The 6.4 earthquake was powerful enough to buckle roads Japan's meteorological agency said there was no danger of tsunami, the tidal waves caused by undersea disturbances such as earthquakes and volcanic activity. But in Hiroshima city, buildings swayed violently and people had trouble standing, with the fire department saying at least two fires were sparked by the quake. Shattered windows "There was a terrible shaking and some products fell on to the floor," said Takuya Ueda, a cashier at a convenience store in Hiroshima. "It lasted a long time, about 30 seconds, but there was no panic inside the store." The quake was also powerful enough to shatter windows and buckle roads. Trains were stopped, and the airport in Hiroshima closed for inspection. Phone services were also disrupted, but there was no report of electrical blackouts. The quake caused structural damage to buildings Michiyo Koniki, a police spokesman in neighboring Tottori prefecture, said the quake caused a slow rocking motion that lasted around 15-20 seconds. Television footage taken from inside NHK's Hiroshima office showed hanging lights shaking and employees leaving their desks to head for the exits. A magnitude 6 quake can seriously damage houses and buildings in a populated area. Saturday's quake was located offshore and relatively deep, which may have lightened its impact. Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and straddles three tectonic plates, the huge slabs of land that cover the surface of the Earth. In October, a quake measuring 7.3 struck a largely rural area in Tottori prefecture. Though at least 120 people were hurt in that quake, no one died. Some 2,000 homes were damaged, but only two were completely destroyed. Some 6,000 people died when a powerful quake devastated the western Japan port of Kobe in 1995.
German Blood and Italian Steel cannot lose!
All science is either physics or stamp collecting (said Ernest Rutherford)
For about 4 or 5 hundred years now science has been using mathmatics as a tool. While pure mathmatics is a very respectable subject, scientists view it as something that they can use to describe complex phenominon. In addition, throughout history scientist have needed higher and higher power mathmatics (Newton and calculus - Gauss and his theroms - Laplace and his techniques...) So today CS is also a reputable field on its own, but for scientists it is a tool just like mathmatics. And the analogy continues that as scientists need higher and higher power CS they create it and asks computer scientists for help with it. Thus, saying that science is just computer science is no different than the old saying that biology is just chemistry and chemistry is just physics and physics is just math and math is just boring, so what's the point.
Science is the exploration of new ideas. Computer science is just computer theory and general programming principles. Without Biologists/Physicists/Chemists etc, you won't get anything that often.
God spoke to me
Computers are a tool. Computer science is the study of that tool, not any field that happens to use it.
Duh
Spiffy Tiffany!
All scientific research now rests on using the tools of computers to advance. So, in a trivial yet important sense, all fields of science are boiling down necessarily to mathematic logic, as such is the underlying nature of computation.
all politicians now agree with each other
men now truly enjoy spending quality time with women
slashdot is now the web portal of all AOL users
bla fuckin' de' bla bla bla
lets get some mo' better stories on here eh? not just some self inflating story about what some computer scientist said - BTW science existed before the modern computer...
I can see where they are getting at, considering the fact that most every field (Science and others) today utilizes a computer (Not Penn. Dutch Farming, though ^_-). Computing has become almost a requirement in science. Imagine where in the Genome project we would be without computers. Well, I just had breakfast and I think I poisoned myself x_x
You can't fight ideas with bullets - NSF Terrorist Leader, Level One of Deus Ex
Though computers have greatly advanced scientific research and experimentation, We still need good Ole fashion scientists to ask the question, and to make hypothosies and conjectures.
Aways start something with the end in mind.