To a certain extent this really comes down to semantics. If someone is writing a complex algorithm to describe a physical phenomenon that has been observed in a

To a certain extent this really comes down to semantics. If someone is writing a complex algorithm to describe a physical phenomenon that has been observed in a lab, are they a physicist or a computer scientist? I tend to disagree with the authors conclusion. I'll concede the theoretical point that anything can be computed, but this doesn't make computer science fundamental. By my definition, Physics is the study of the most fundamental components of the universe and algorithms are an indispensible tool in that study. It is possible to write an algorithm that perfectly describes what happens when you get hit by a car. This is not the same thing as you actually getting hit by the car. In other words, algorithms are a description of what is happening, not the actual events themselves.