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When you select CS as your major, there should be a popup box that asks if you're aware CS involves math. I disagree that this is good advice to give someone c

by javert 14y ago

When you select CS as your major, there should be a popup box that asks if you're aware CS involves math. I disagree that this is good advice to give someone considering a CS major. Math is not fundamental to CS. CS is fundamental to CS. Most of a high school/college math curriculum is not that closely related to most of what happens in CS. In general, there is some "mathiness" to CS, but it is of such a different flavor to "the math you learn in school" that I don't think making a comparison is useful (it certainly would not have been in my case). I have bachelor's and master's degrees in CS and am pursuing a PhD in CS.

troymc 14y ago
The foundations of CS are things like sets, logic, formal languages, Turing machines, computability... all math. Maybe you didn't learn that stuff in "math class" but that doesn't mean it's not math.
- javert 14y ago
  I would say that logic is fudamental to math and cs. I disagree with mathematicians that claim that math is prior to logic. Formal languages, turing machines, and computability are computing science, which we call computer science. Computing science may be part of math, but math is not fundamental to it. In other words, you need logic as a basis for those examples, but otherwise, they are not dependent on other mathematical knowledge. I don't think sets are all that important in cs (but I disagree with mathematicians who try to base everything on set theory).
  - learc83 14y ago
    You're correct that most of computer science (except for the explicit mat classes you're required to take) doesn't inherently rely on existing math knowledge. However, they way computer science is taught does assume prior math knowledge. Thinking back to the very first example algorithms in my intro class--we had to impliment addition, multiplication, then heron's square root method. Very basic math, but that was around the time many students dropped the class.
learc83 14y ago
In the intro CS class a very large percentage of students were completely baffled by division when converting between binary/hex/octal. It was the basic arithmetic/algebra that gave them pause, not logic. Additionally you need to take at least 4 classes that are actually in the math department to finish the degree.

by javert 14y ago

troymc 14y ago

The foundations of CS are things like sets, logic, formal languages, Turing machines, computability... all math. Maybe you didn't learn that stuff in "math class" but that doesn't mean it's not math.

javert 14y ago
I would say that logic is fudamental to math and cs. I disagree with mathematicians that claim that math is prior to logic. Formal languages, turing machines, and computability are computing science, which we call computer science. Computing science may be part of math, but math is not fundamental to it. In other words, you need logic as a basis for those examples, but otherwise, they are not dependent on other mathematical knowledge. I don't think sets are all that important in cs (but I disagree with mathematicians who try to base everything on set theory).
- learc83 14y ago
  You're correct that most of computer science (except for the explicit mat classes you're required to take) doesn't inherently rely on existing math knowledge. However, they way computer science is taught does assume prior math knowledge. Thinking back to the very first example algorithms in my intro class--we had to impliment addition, multiplication, then heron's square root method. Very basic math, but that was around the time many students dropped the class.

learc83 14y ago

In the intro CS class a very large percentage of students were completely baffled by division when converting between binary/hex/octal. It was the basic arithmetic/algebra that gave them pause, not logic. Additionally you need to take at least 4 classes that are actually in the math department to finish the degree.