How Come Computer Scientists Are Scientists?

RoystonCWD · March 24, 2012, 6:30am

Computer Science is in the engineering school of MIT, and the Stanford Engineering School too. So how come Computer scientists are “scientists”, I mean what do they do that makes them “scientists” or are they just engineers with a fancy name?

Mikalye · March 25, 2012, 6:29am

There are computer scientists and computer engineers. You can become trained in either of them at MIT, and of course there is a great deal of overlap.

RoystonCWD · March 25, 2012, 10:04am

(1) Computer scientists are not scientists, and are just engineers with fancy names. Agree or not?

(2) Physicists are more contributive and important than computer scientists because physicists map the universe while computer scientists only study things about computers. Agree or not?

If you dont agree with (1) and (2), please explain why.

Thank You For Your Opinions!

molliebatmit · March 25, 2012, 10:58am

I get into IRL flame wars with my husband (an aerospace engineer) all the time about who’s more important and awesome and fundamental, scientists or engineers, and I can assure you this is an argument that will never be won.

lidusha · March 25, 2012, 12:45pm

The world needs both, which is why MIT accepts both. Keep in mind that physics is a much older field than computer science. The two are hard to compare.

mathboy98 · March 25, 2012, 2:40pm

There are computer scientists who do very little directly related to engineering of course. It’s called theory.

As for physicists: well, map the universe in what sense? Who counts as a physicist? Usually physicists seem to be pretty stuck on how to map the universe, and a few people come along and have great ideas, with a lot of individuals crunching away at something that they hope to be near a description of reality.

There are definitely beautiful physics theories which I’d like to understand myself, which really describe things consistently with experiment. Both mathematics and physics have prodigies, but I feel like in a field aiming to describe the universe, which inherently means theories can be chucked out, there might be a higher chance of “lesser mortals’ work” going out the window, unless they are careful about what they work on.

I’m pretty sure computers are useful for various areas of physics :), although that’s not the same as “computer science” …

Physics strikes my fancy more, personally, I’ll freely admit. But one should remember that physics (at least in the sense it seems to be pursued as research) maps the universe in the sense that it aims to study pretty fundamental interactions. There are always tons of phenomena which need you to look at more specific examples. So it’s not quite fair to say physicists study the whole universe, while computer scientists study just computers.

mathboy98 · March 25, 2012, 2:49pm

You could probably train in computer science as a mathematics major. Obviously, a subject related to computers has lots of potential for applications, whence perhaps they put it in the engineering school. I could easily see computer science being its own thing - not within mathematics or engineering.

What about political scientists?

anon89723960 · March 25, 2012, 3:08pm

(1) Varies greatly. There are theorists who do things that are much closer to math than anything, and software engineers that are… well, engineers.

(2) “More important” is up for you to decide, by whatever metric you want. I think my life has been influenced more by people working with computers than people studying physics, though. My life is far more influenced by my interactions with computers than by my knowledge of black holes.

RoystonCWD · March 25, 2012, 7:27pm

I’ve heard that some math professors also conduct research in computer science departments, Professor. Eric Grimsom is one of them.

So may I ask what’s the difference between getting a Math Ph.D or a Computer Science Ph.D, when I do actual research?

Thanks!

RoystonCWD · March 25, 2012, 7:28pm

Sorry It’s Prof. *Eric Grimson

collegealum314 · March 25, 2012, 7:46pm

The only difference would be coursework and requirements, assuming you were working for someone with an appointment in both the comp sci and math departments. So basically your first couple of years would be different.

shravas · March 25, 2012, 8:56pm

There are professors that have joint appointments in math and cs, but I don’t think Professor Grimson is not one of them. There’s no difference in the nature of the research you would be doing as long as you’d be working in the same field in both programs. The qualifying exams are slightly different for both departments though.

RoystonCWD · March 25, 2012, 10:16pm

We often heard the phrase “Science & Technology”, so do you think computer scientists have contributed in both “Science” and “Technology”, or just “Technology”.

If you think computer scientists also contribute in “Science”, please explain in what way.

Thank you for your help on my coursework research, I know the question’s stupid.

lidusha · March 26, 2012, 12:39am

You shouldn’t try to use College Confidential to do your homework for you. I recommend skimming [Computer</a> science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science]Computer”>Computer science - Wikipedia) You might be particularly interested in the Areas of Computer Science section. Good luck.

phantasmagoric · March 26, 2012, 1:23am

Why do you keep asking the same obnoxious questions in several forums? Are you trying to incite others? I see you’re an international student, but your English seems rather good, so I’m not sure whether to excuse your lack of tact. In either case, most of your questions can easily be answered by simply reading the Wikipedia article on computer science. In the future, try to do this very basic, easy research before posting essentially the same thread over and over again in multiple forums. (For that matter, don’t post the same question over and over again at all.)

phr34k · March 26, 2012, 11:45am

Computer science is a science, because quite honestly, it is a science :P

Now leaving all the trolling aside, the reason why CS is a science, because its equal to the analogy common to all the science subjects. Its somewhat similar to physics; while in physics you learn how the universe works, in CS you learn how computers work, how they react to a certain chain of command. You do so much of coding, that itself is somewhat of an art, thinking about how to get to a certain outcome and then making logical sense of a language.

And like others above have pointed out, there are engineers and scientists in CS. Engineers try to exploit the skills they learn in making software, operating system and are in almost every possible field. Scientists like any other scientists, research…

mathboy98 · March 26, 2012, 2:22pm

The one excuse I can think of about Wikipedia is that it can be technical beyond the level of sophistication of someone who knows nothing about the subject. However, there are probably some good, simple surveys on the topic to get started, floating online.

As for a math vs CS PhD, you would almost certainly be applying to applied math. The impression I get is that research and publications count for more in CS admissions than in theoretical mathematics. And of course, like people said, quals. That is a nontrivial time drain if you aren’t reasonably prepared coming in.

I would say that it would be easiest to pass quals in whatever you focused more on as an undergrad. This would also influence the admissions committee, who feel it their duty to admit people who will both succeed admirably at research and not be tripped up too much by requirements.

phantasmagoric · March 27, 2012, 9:19am

^ true, Wikipedia even confuses me a lot. But the CS article is pretty suited for the lay reader.

Re: math vs. CS, I’d say there’s less distinction there (particularly applied math) than people often think. For many years, CS at Harvard was administered under applied math. I think many schools still do this, or some form of it (e.g. having a CS department in a math division that also includes depts for stats, applied math, etc.). There’s definitely a lot of overlap between applied/pure math and theoretical CS.

If anyone’s actually curious about the answers to the OP’s question, here’s my reply to his similar threads posted elsewhere:

Of course computer scientists are scientists, by any definition of the word. Take the wiki definition: the broad “one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge” (most definitely true) or the more narrow “an individual who uses the scientific method” (also true). As the wiki article notes, “Scientists are also distinct from engineers, those who develop devices that serve practical purposes,” which is an important point. Yes, some CS practitioners have the goal of developing more practical devices (just like physicists, chemists, and every other scientist), but a large portion (if not the majority) don’t share that goal necessarily. CS is an extremely broad field, with subfields from the theory of computation to databases to systems to artificial intelligence. Each of these has theoretical foundations, as well as applied ones, and researchers in the field can engage in either or both. Anyone who thinks that computer scientists are just glorified engineers don’t know what CS is.

Some might be seeing CS as “less legitimate” than physics for this reason: physics is one of the natural sciences, which is what most people think of when they think “science,” whereas CS is one of the formal sciences, which include mathematics, logic, and statistics. The difference between the two is captured in one of Einstein’s quotes:



One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of other sciences are to some extent debatable and in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.



This applies to computer science as well. We know, provably, that some things are not computable (computability); that some processes are intractable (complexity); that parallelism is often the only solution; that X amount of information can be captured by at minimum Y data (information theory); and so on. Both physicists and computer scientists are attempting to seek truth and acquire knowledge; the former looks to the natural world (or if you’re a string theorist, your buttocks :p), the latter to the mathematical structures (broadly construed) that we already know, in many cases using computers as a platform for experimentation.

It’s impossible to say that one field is more important than another. But if we’re looking only at the effects on the world, physics can’t compare. Computers have changed the course of civilization forever. Physics, too, will likely have long-lasting effects, but in terms of what each field has contributed, I don’t think 400 years of physics research can match what CS has done in the past 50.

Of all the sciences, physics is always seen as the “most probing” for asking the most fundamental questions about the physical world, but math and all its subfields, including CS, ask even more fundamental questions, independent of the physical world. This perception of physics is very common; one computer scientist, who works in AI, told a story about an awards ceremony for the Benjamin Franklin Medal (given to scientists in all fields):



I couldn’t help noticing that the warmest applause was reserved for the physicist, a distinguished pioneer of string theory. I was initially puzzled by the enthusiasm on the part of a mostly lay audience for such theoretical work, which for all its elegance and beauty, could not (as far as I could see) be expected to have nearly as much impact on their everyday lives as that of some of the other recipients, who that year included not only Aravind, but another computer scientist whose impact on information processing will be obvious to the members of ACL, Andrew Viterbi.

But then I recalled that the physicist’s take-home message had had nothing to do with string theory. This admirable man’s last words to us had been the following:

“Everything is made of particles. So physics is very important.”



But by the same token, everything (including your brain) is a computational process. In fact, one theory of the physical universe is that it’s one big computer, and the laws of physics are simply “necessary algorithms.” In this view, everything is a computational (even deterministic) process, and physics itself is attempting to figure out what that process is. You can look up “computational universe theory” and “mathematical universe hypothesis.”

It’s important to note, also, that the majority of physics today employs computational methods, and much of it uses only such methods. For example, the LHC would be useless without the enormous parallel-distributed computing that processes the data it produces; this computing is the result of decades of research in CS. So physicists owe computer scientists quite a lot.

IMO physicists are just mad that their research costs millions or billions of dollars whereas computer scientists can buy their equipment for $300 at Best Buy.

mathboy98 · March 27, 2012, 11:54pm

For what it’s worth, I like the answer much of it is stuff I’d like to have brought up.

Particularly related is what I wrote at some point about the non-prodigies out there being careful about what they work on. Sure, Witten is quite a genius, but the absurd number of people doing string theory sometimes makes me wonder how many of them can produce work that is even reasonably timeless. After all, whether or not a whole field of physics is abandoned, certain approaches most certainly can be, and in such an ambitious quest, my feeling is that many of the approaches will indeed be abandoned. Now, I think working on it just because it’s cool is respectable. But that presupposes no delusions of grandeur in “explaining the universe” …

I also particularly like the point about how CS is fundamental in its own right.

How Come Computer Scientists Are Scientists?

CONNECT WITH US