Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 25, 2024, 3:05 pm

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Is CS a science or engineering, or maybe something else?
#8
RE: Is CS a science or engineering, or maybe something else?
(October 28, 2023 at 7:16 am)FlatAssembler Wrote: Computer science, although it is called "science", is definitely not a typical science. Typical science paper today includes a discussion about p-values, but hardly any computer science paper does. And I think everybody would agree that a typical computer science paper doesn't apply the scientific method, like one we are taught in our high-school biology classes. That's why many people say that computer science is closer to engineering than to science. However, I would argue it is not typical engineering either.

Engineering makes heavy use of university-level math. Electrical and mechanical engineering basically revolve around calculus. OK, electrical engineers often use the phasor approximation which replaces calculus with complex numbers, and it can be done if the frequency of the alternating current is relatively low (so that the Kirchhoff's laws are a good approximation). But, if you don't understand calculus, your understanding of electrical engineering will be superficial at best. In mechanical engineering, as far as I know, you can never use complex numbers instead of calculus, you are forced to use calculus directly. In mechanical and electrical engineering, you use transfer functions, Laplace transforms... And, for just about every electrical system, there is an analogous mechanical system, and vice versa. There is nothing like that in computer science.
Thus far, the only time I had to apply university-level math in my hobby projects was when I was making an analog clock in my programming language targetting WebAssembly (as WebAssembly has no fsin and similar instructions, so I had to apply calculus to think of an algorithm by which program running on WebAssembly could calculate trigonometric functions). And notice that I wouldn't even have to do that had I made my compiler properly, using LLVM to target WebAssembly instead of targetting WebAssembly directly.

Also, engineering requires some knowledge of physics, in fact, it is heavily constrained by physics. Mechanical engineering makes the use of Newton's Laws of Motion for linear systems or the Euler's Laws for rotational systems, electrical engineering uses Kirchhoff's Laws for low frequency currents or the Maxwell's Equations for high-frequency currents, electronical engineering makes heavy use of quantum mechanics...
In computer science, the only time you are constrained by physics is usually only so that you cannot expect a huge amount of information to be transferred immediately.

For those reasons, I think it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that computer science is engineering.

What difference does it make? Engineering is the practical application of scientific principles.

Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
Reply



Messages In This Thread
RE: Is CS a science or engineering, or maybe something else? - by BrianSoddingBoru4 - October 28, 2023 at 11:22 am

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Everything, Something's or Nothing Lord Andreasson 28 1614 October 4, 2024 at 2:48 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Does a natural "god" maybe exist? Skeptic201 19 2446 November 27, 2022 at 7:46 am
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  Something from Nothing Banned 66 14084 March 7, 2018 at 5:52 pm
Last Post: The Grand Nudger
  Creatio Ex Nihilo - Forming Something out of Nothing? GrandizerII 70 14234 February 24, 2015 at 6:21 pm
Last Post: IATIA
  Why Something Rather Than Nothing? datc 249 39018 November 7, 2014 at 4:33 pm
Last Post: LostDays
  Something more. Mystic 20 3407 October 20, 2014 at 6:58 pm
Last Post: Mudhammam
  Can the laws of physics bring something into existence? Freedom of thought 23 6639 June 23, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Last Post: Surgenator
  The Meaning of the Universe - Maybe Beta Ray Bill 19 7133 June 4, 2014 at 5:20 am
Last Post: pocaracas
  The following is not a question: Can something come from nothing? Alex K 204 36933 April 16, 2014 at 6:02 pm
Last Post: ManMachine
  is there anyone else on this planet like me?? leodeo 37 6663 February 25, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Last Post: ShaMan



Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)