Are We Scientists? A colleague and I attended a lecture at ACT several years ago. The speaker was a visiting professor. He spoke about the use of computer programs to grade essays. Later, at lunch here on our campus, I told my colleagues that I had attended a presentation on this topic. They responded immediately…
A Poem about Computer Science
In 1959, Dutch pioneer of computer science Edsger Dijkstra published an algorithm that now routes e-mail and gives directions to drivers in GPS-equipped cars. Many beginning students of computer science study his beautiful algorithm. Every Step Takes Us Closer When we take to the highway in a caror send encouraging words through the Internet,when UPS…
What does a computer look like?
In the 1950s, soon after Univac, IBM, and other companies first began manufacturing computers, audiences saw computers in movies like Desk Set and Forbidden Planet. They recognized a computer when they saw an enormous cabinet decorated with blinking lights. The big machines buzzed, clattered, and beeped. In the 1980s, soon after Apple, IBM, and other…
Computability
For which problems do algorithms that generate a solution exist? This question defines the study of computability. A programmer can direct a computer to repeat a series of arithmetic operations until some logical condition is satisfied. If the programmer fails to specify the terminating condition correctly, the computer will continue executing the instructions forever. Will…
Complexity
For computer scientists, the word complexity denotes the amount of work required to solve a problem using a given algorithm. An algorithm is the sequence of arithmetic and logical operations that lead to the solution of a problem. Computer scientists measure the complexity of an algorithm by comparing the number of instructions that a computer…
Why study searching and sorting algorithms?
Why program a computer to perform a task that people can do by hand?People can sort short lists by hand. Computers become indispensable when the number or length of the lists to be sorted become very large. We study two algorithms for searching and three algorithms for sorting in our first course. If you continue…
Genius in teamwork
Computer scientists have created some of the most complex objects that human beings have ever designed and built. The largest programs contain tens of millions of instructions. If printed on paper and bound in books a single large program would fill hundreds of volumes. No single person can fully comprehend a large program. Large teams…
Get to know more professors
I am guessing that a typical student at my small college studies with a quarter of the members of the faculty but sees little of the other three quarters. Could we commit ourselves to an effort to create opportunities and incentives that would make it easier for students to meet a larger fraction of the…
Learn with and from one another
Could we commit ourselves to finding ways of making it easier and more attractive for members of the faculty to enroll in one another\’s courses for a term or a part of a term? The spouse of a colleague enrolled in a course that I taught in the autumn. Her presence in the classroom added…
The importance of a good example
One of the ways in which we teach our students how to learn is by showing them how we learn. We model for them the attitudes and habits that we hope they will develop. We want our students to be curious. We take an interest in many subjects. We want our students to think independently…