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If the ACM, instead of founding the Turing award, had attempted to pay to get a Nobel memorial prize in Computer Science, we would have easily recognized it for

If the ACM, instead of founding the Turing award, had attempted to pay to get a Nobel memorial prize in Computer Science, we would have easily recognized it for what it was - a pathetic play for respectability.

ghaff 3y ago
Or an acceptance of the fact that many orders of magnitude more people would recognize that a Nobel Prize in Computer Science represented a notable achievement than would have any idea what the Turing award is and why they should care. (Obviously they didn't and there are many important awards in their respective fields that don't have Nobel in their titles but it's hard to dispute that the Nobel prizes carry a lot of brand recognition.)
blululu 3y ago
The name Computer Science itself is a marketing ploy to convince people that it is a real science (and not just another branch of engineering). Seems to be working for CS, and I can easily imagine people on this forum would be happy to defend the legitimacy of the Swedish Institute of Sciences Nobel Memorial Prize in Computational Science. I think the issue is not an objection to marketing but an objection to the inherently political nature of economics. The people who don't like the phrase Noble Prize in Economics generally don't agree with the political aspirations of neoliberal economists to shape and control global policy. There is something very troubling about the amount of power that central bankers and academics wield given how flimsy their methods are.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Historically Computer Science was often more associated with mathematics in academia than it was with electrical engineering--depending upon the school. Today, most people would probably agree that it's mostly an engineering discipline, albeit perhaps lacking some of the formal methods and practices that other branches of engineering tend to have. But it was presumably less clear when the term was coined in the early 1960s.
  - probably_wrong 3y ago
    > albeit perhaps lacking some of the formal methods and practices that other branches of engineering tend to have. I'd like to point out that this depends heavily on your institution. My CS program had a class literally called "Formal methods", and every student was required to learn formal proofs before their first programming-heavy class (namely, "Data Structures I").
    - derstander 3y ago
      > I'd like to point out that this depends heavily on your institution. My CS program had a class literally called "Formal methods", and every student was required to learn formal proofs before their first programming-heavy class (namely, "Data Structures I"). But compare usage of formal methods and practices in software engineers in a startup (or even well-established company) with engineers designing a bridge, for example.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        My degree is in "Computer Science", NOT "Software engineering" and for that and other reasons I am against calling myself a "Software engineer" I'm not an engineer. I am a subject matter expert employed as a generalist.
- grotorea 3y ago
  Isn't CS proper (not software engineering) much more a field of math? > I think the issue is not an objection to marketing but an objection to the inherently political nature of economics. The people who don't like the phrase Noble Prize in Economics generally don't agree with the political aspirations of neoliberal economists to shape and control global policy. There is something very troubling about the amount of power that central bankers and academics wield given how flimsy their methods are. Hmm, good point, I wonder if it's that or just good old internet "ackhuallyyy".
- yati 3y ago
  Much of theoretical computer science is math, like much of modern theoretical physics is also math. “Computational science” brings up images of computational complexity theory, computability, information theory, distributed consensus, type theory etc. So maybe not a marketing ploy.
  - SantalBlush 3y ago
    >Much of theoretical computer science is math Does that make it a science? I think nobody in this thread is using the same definition of science.
  - derstander 3y ago
    > Much of theoretical computer science is math, like much of modern theoretical physics is also math. Math is not science - regardless of whether it’s masquerading as computer science or certain branches of theoretical physics. This makes me sound down on mathematics which I’m certainly not. It’s both useful and can be profoundly beautiful. And it can be an integral tool in science — or studied on its own merits. But it’s not science.
kevinmchugh 3y ago
We could reasonably describe founding the prizes as a pathetic play for respectability on the behalf of Nobel himself.
- grotorea 3y ago
  Posthumous respectability perhaps. But as far as things go, I didn't like my leaked obituary so I decided to do something good is not pathetic IMHO.

ghaff 3y ago

Or an acceptance of the fact that many orders of magnitude more people would recognize that a Nobel Prize in Computer Science represented a notable achievement than would have any idea what the Turing award is and why they should care. (Obviously they didn't and there are many important awards in their respective fields that don't have Nobel in their titles but it's hard to dispute that the Nobel prizes carry a lot of brand recognition.)

blululu 3y ago

The name Computer Science itself is a marketing ploy to convince people that it is a real science (and not just another branch of engineering). Seems to be working for CS, and I can easily imagine people on this forum would be happy to defend the legitimacy of the Swedish Institute of Sciences Nobel Memorial Prize in Computational Science. I think the issue is not an objection to marketing but an objection to the inherently political nature of economics. The people who don't like the phrase Noble Prize in Economics generally don't agree with the political aspirations of neoliberal economists to shape and control global policy. There is something very troubling about the amount of power that central bankers and academics wield given how flimsy their methods are.

ghaff 3y ago
Historically Computer Science was often more associated with mathematics in academia than it was with electrical engineering--depending upon the school. Today, most people would probably agree that it's mostly an engineering discipline, albeit perhaps lacking some of the formal methods and practices that other branches of engineering tend to have. But it was presumably less clear when the term was coined in the early 1960s.
- probably_wrong 3y ago
  > albeit perhaps lacking some of the formal methods and practices that other branches of engineering tend to have. I'd like to point out that this depends heavily on your institution. My CS program had a class literally called "Formal methods", and every student was required to learn formal proofs before their first programming-heavy class (namely, "Data Structures I").
  - derstander 3y ago
    > I'd like to point out that this depends heavily on your institution. My CS program had a class literally called "Formal methods", and every student was required to learn formal proofs before their first programming-heavy class (namely, "Data Structures I"). But compare usage of formal methods and practices in software engineers in a startup (or even well-established company) with engineers designing a bridge, for example.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      My degree is in "Computer Science", NOT "Software engineering" and for that and other reasons I am against calling myself a "Software engineer" I'm not an engineer. I am a subject matter expert employed as a generalist.
grotorea 3y ago
Isn't CS proper (not software engineering) much more a field of math? > I think the issue is not an objection to marketing but an objection to the inherently political nature of economics. The people who don't like the phrase Noble Prize in Economics generally don't agree with the political aspirations of neoliberal economists to shape and control global policy. There is something very troubling about the amount of power that central bankers and academics wield given how flimsy their methods are. Hmm, good point, I wonder if it's that or just good old internet "ackhuallyyy".
yati 3y ago
Much of theoretical computer science is math, like much of modern theoretical physics is also math. “Computational science” brings up images of computational complexity theory, computability, information theory, distributed consensus, type theory etc. So maybe not a marketing ploy.
- SantalBlush 3y ago
  >Much of theoretical computer science is math Does that make it a science? I think nobody in this thread is using the same definition of science.
- derstander 3y ago
  > Much of theoretical computer science is math, like much of modern theoretical physics is also math. Math is not science - regardless of whether it’s masquerading as computer science or certain branches of theoretical physics. This makes me sound down on mathematics which I’m certainly not. It’s both useful and can be profoundly beautiful. And it can be an integral tool in science — or studied on its own merits. But it’s not science.

kevinmchugh 3y ago

We could reasonably describe founding the prizes as a pathetic play for respectability on the behalf of Nobel himself.

grotorea 3y ago
Posthumous respectability perhaps. But as far as things go, I didn't like my leaked obituary so I decided to do something good is not pathetic IMHO.