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Fun fact - The computer science department of the Moscow State University [1] was created in 1970 as a joint effort between Physics and Math departments to add
by throwaway_65123 3y ago
Fun fact -
The computer science department of the Moscow State University [1] was created in 1970 as a joint effort between Physics and Math departments to address computational needs of Tokamak models. Hence the official name - the department of computational mathematics and cybernetics.
The joke goes that they were hoping to "solve the Tokamak" in a couple of years and then move on to other fields of computer science - a dream that is still very much alive.
[1] https://cs.msu.ru/en https://cs.msu.ru/en
- mustafa_pasi 3y agoInteresting. Computational mathematics has really very little to do with traditional CS topics.
- thriftwy 3y agoTraditional CS is not in vogue at ex-USSR universities. Poring over type systems and pure functions just never caught up over here, compared to good old Knuth-worth "close to metal" CS. Some SDEs do take interest in these topics independently, though.
- DeathArrow 3y agoWhat do they study in ex-USSR universities?
- thriftwy 3y agoData structures, low-level workings of CPU and other hardware, computational compexities, binary algebra, combinatorics and discrete maths. Throw in some logic circuits design. The same things they ask on FAANG interviews, coincidentally.
- flopriore 3y agoIt seems very similar to what we study in "Computer Science and Engineering" in Italy, which is a different degree from "Computer Science". The former is considered engineering, the latter isn't (pretty strange tbh, but that's how it works)
- ivan_gammel 3y agoCM&C MSU masters -https://cs.msu.ru/sites/cmc/files/docs/sopostavlenie_magisterskih_programm_akademicheskih_grupp_i_kafedr.pdf https://cs.msu.ru/sites/cmc/files/docs/sopostavlenie_magiste... MIPT - https://mipt.ru/english/edu/master/ https://mipt.ru/english/edu/master/ There’s everything, including traditional CS topics (compilers etc), AI and quantum informatics.
- avmich 3y agoI sometimes feel sad about one particular branch of study, which could be applied to speed up computers, which was active right when the USSR was collapsing. Konstantin Likharev, among others, from Moscow State University worked on Josephson junction logical gates which demonstrated - then, 30 years ago - switching frequencies which are still out of reach for at least the mainstream CPUs (in some hundreds of gigahertz). A bit hard to find good articles about that research today - this one, https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/articles/8/269 https://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano/articles/8/269 , is an example. I've heard it failed to produce a commercial product because it was really hard to miniaturize.
- closewith 3y agoWhat are the traditional CS topics?
- specialist 3y agoSorting, searching, caching. (ducks)
- timthorn 3y agoNaming things.
- specialist 3y agoYa, I second guessed myself. First in, then I thought "Naw, some pendant will say 'ackewlwally, that's software engineering'". Next time, I promise to take the principled stand.
- flashback2199 3y agoCS not software engineering.
- biomcgary 3y agooff by one
- FiatLuxDave 3y agoIn case anyone missed the ducks in the traditional CS curriculum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://themindcollection.com/atwoods-duck/ https://themindcollection.com/atwoods-duck/
- ivan_gammel 3y agoI guess it was not only the fusion that interested Soviet scientists. I remember attending lectures on parallel computing there, where Vladimir Voevodin was telling the story about Soviet computers in 1970s calculating ICBM flight routes 30 minutes faster than American ones. Not sure if this story was true, but there was always a significant military component in research.
- calamari4065 3y ago>Soviet computers in 1970s calculating ICBM flight routes 30 minutes faster That's hilarious. That sort of computation has to be completely trivial with modern computers. It's so crazy to think that plotting a ballistic trajectory ever took more than a few milliseconds, much less hours
- namibj 3y agoThey are ((sub-)orbital) rockets, not atmospheric bullets. I'm not surprised it was hard to compute to the accuracies desired.
- calamari4065 3y agoThe B in ICBM stands for ballistic. I'm not saying the computation isn't complicated, I'm marveling at the fact that my watch can run that computation in microseconds
- ivan_gammel 3y agoYou are right, it’s complicated. Ballistic doesn’t mean it is a parabolic trajectory. At this distance (I stands for Intercontinental) you need to account for the atmospheric drag, winds, differences in gravity etc. Besides that ICBMs of 1960-1970s were using inertial navigation and had maneuvering warheads (e.g. SS-10), which increased complexity of the calculations. You still can do it on your modern watch.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago