Thursday, January 19, 2006

Computer science growing into a basic science

Computer science has evolved over many decades. While the early decades were dominated by mechanical calculating machines, today’s computers have evolved from the 1960s into a finite automaton that realises a Turning Machine, using architecture originally proposed by von Neumann. This model provides for a very general purpose machine capable of addressing problems across all endeavours of human activity. The microprocessor revolution, large-scale and super-efficient semiconductor production, huge growth in primary and secondary storage, and high-speed networking and switching capacity have dramatically changed the way end-users look at computers and computer networks.

The enormous computational power now available has led to a situation where computers are routinely used to solve fundamental problems across physical, chemical, biological, engineering, medical and social sciences. There are any numbers of examples to drive home the point. As the following examples show, many of these will be impossible without computersThe ‘Four Color Conjecture,’ originally posed in 1852, was one of the first mathematical theorems to be proved through computational means. Using 1,200 hours of high-speed computers, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken of the University of Illinois solved the conjecture in 1976.
• Allen Cormack of Tufts University, US, and Godfrey Hounsfield of EMI, England, got their 1979 Nobel prize for physiology and medicine for inventing Computer Aided Tomography (CAT).
• IBM’s ‘Deep Blue’ supercomputer “defeated” chess champion Gary Kasparov in May 1997.
• On September 20, 2002, Boeing announced the launch of its 777 series of aircraft that were “100% digitally designed.”
• On April 14, 2003, a major milestone was reached in biological sciences with the completion of the sequencing of the human genome.
• Computers helped solve the mathematical theorem ‘Four Colour Conjecture’• Boeing used computer graphics to design its 777 series aircraft• Sequencing of the human genome was completed with the help of computers
Against this background, it was interesting to hear eminent computer scientists at the ‘Tech Vista,’ organised recently by Microsoft Research (MSR), India .
Legendary Oxford professor Sir Tony Hoare, winner of the 1980 ACM Award (the equivalent of the Nobel prize in computer science) spoke about his “40 years in computing.” He mentioned his early interest in machine translation and deep interest in ‘programme verification’ that attempts to ‘prove’ the correctness of programmes, than merely ‘testing the programmes’ for possible errors. In the process, he invented the ‘Quick Sort’ algorithm, used billions of times every day by millions of computers around the world.

Professor Raj Reddy, founder-director of the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, spoke about his ‘Million Book Digital Library Project.’ He outlined the challenges of automated classification, machine translation, particularly in Indian languages, natural language processing, speech, summarisation and ‘mining’ of large volumes of text to discover ‘hidden patterns.’
Professor Maria Klawe, dean of engineering at Princeton university, shared details of the ‘The Aphasia Project,’ in which she and her researchers are designing hand-held devices that combine images, text and sound to address the special needs of people with cognitive disorder which affects a person’s ability to process words.
Dr Dan Ling, vice-president, Microsoft Research, talked of projects that focus on mobile phones and their interaction with human beings. A particularly interesting project is the one addressing the challenges of patients affected by ‘sleep apnea.’

The talks demonstrated that research in computer science is moving beyond the study of a set of ‘computing machinery.’ Just as mathematics and physics have matured into fundamental sciences, computer science, too, is graduating into one. This is of special significance for India, where the scientific community confuses the study of computer science with the acquisition of IT skills leading to well-paying jobs, and often laments that computer science is “killing” other basic sciences.

We do need good physicists, chemists, material scientists and mathematicians. Computer science, if properly appro-ached, will nourish the growth of every other science, be it astronomy, space science, nuclear science, biological science, materials science, or health science.

fecolumnists.expressindia.com

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