tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post111705338982435945..comments2024-03-14T01:32:43.610-06:00Comments on The Geomblog: Durable metaphors for (theoretical) computer scienceSuresh Venkatasubramanianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15898357513326041822noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-50880884561394795692007-09-03T17:32:00.000-06:002007-09-03T17:32:00.000-06:00your cab driver was probably a cs grad ;oyour cab driver was probably a cs grad ;oAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-1117599306470604702005-05-31T22:15:00.000-06:002005-05-31T22:15:00.000-06:00A cab driver asked me what I do a few years ago. I...A cab driver asked me what I do a few years ago. I started explaining NP-completeness to him, and he turned out to have heard of it already. That was in Boston, but it was still gratifying.<BR/><BR/>When the Clay Mathematics Foundation announced the Millenium Prize Problems, there was some effort at making theoretical computer science accessible to non-CS people. Does anyone remember the "Minesweeper is NP-complete" result? I also saw a couple of public lectures aimed at non-scientists during this time. How well did that work (or not)? Is it something that should be revived?  <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://geomblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/durable-metaphors-for-theoretical.html#comments" REL="nofollow" TITLE="dmolnar at eecs dot berkeley dot edu">David Molnar</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-1117287877810999482005-05-28T07:44:00.000-06:002005-05-28T07:44:00.000-06:00Perhaps, as one of the commenters on Lance's blog ...Perhaps, as one of the commenters on Lance's blog suggested, we should change the name of the field from "theoretical computer science" to something more down to earth ("the science of problem-solving") or more flashy ("problemology") that doesn't use the scary (and unnecessary) word "computer".<BR/><BR/>This issue is incredibly important, but any solutions will have to deal with the cultural divide within computing between foundations/applications, science/engineering, ideas/devices, CS/IT, (CACM before 1990)/(CACM after 1990), or whatever you want to call it. The story of theoretical computer science may be almost entirely disjoint from the stories of software engineering or networking systems, just as it is from (say) the stories of signal processing or algebraic geometry. Yes, there are major overlaps, but the central metaphor—how we convince ourselves that what we do is important—is very different. We may face some resistance from the Dark Side.<BR/><BR/>A couple of years ago, my department chair opened our weekly colloquiuum series by stating that computer science was a misnomer because "what we do has almost nothing to do with science". I absolutely agree with his statement, except for the last word. <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://3dpancakes.typepad.cion/ernie/" REL="nofollow" TITLE="">JeffE</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6555947.post-1117228385718491652005-05-27T15:13:00.000-06:002005-05-27T15:13:00.000-06:00It would be interesting to have a rigorous study i...It would be interesting to have a rigorous study interviewing a uniform random sample of people in the street and see what they actually know about quantum mechanics vs. computational complexity (for example).<BR/><BR/>I think as scientists its hard for us to conceptualize the knowledge of the average non-scientist (simply because we tend mostly to talk about science with other scientists) so it might be have our intuitins checked against hard data.<BR/><BR/>We could then devise an advocacy campaign accordingly.<BR/><BR/>We might even be able to get NSF funding for this study;) <BR/><BR/><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.livejournal.com/users/rweba" REL="nofollow" TITLE="rweba at cs dot cmu dot edu">Mugizi Robert Rwebangira</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com