Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2281-85 (24-28 September 2012) Weekly Comics Discussion Thread
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 28 Sep 2012, 13:07 ---[quote=I thought it was Edsger Diskstra but apparently not]
--- End quote ---
Edsger Dijkstra
One of several names whose spelling I remember because of the ijk sequence.
Also possibly the biggest hero in my life.
Vurogj:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 28 Sep 2012, 13:07 ---Maybe humans in the QC world study computer science for the same reason cats closely watch humans.
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Because one day we will have to kill our overlords, and studying them is the best way to find weaknesses?
Is it cold in here?:
CS concepts such as complexity theory and the halting problem will still be relevant as long as humans are still in decision-making positions (if they still are post-Singularity). People need to understand why some problems will defy any amount of computing power thrown at them, and why using software to analyze software has unfixable limitations.
Then there's the sheer intellectual exercise and beauty that comes with any form of advanced mathematics, but that's covered by the "calligraphy" idea.
Carl-E:
While indeed beautiful, and many who study it are struck by that beauty, I disagree with the comparison of the pursuit of higher mathematics to the calligraphy example. Math is not so limited; like any science, mathematicians are continuously pushing back the boundaries of human knowledge. My own thesis took a pattern discovered by my thesis advisor's thesis advisor (my academic grampa) and applied it to an item in knot theory not previously understood. The basic structure was then taken by my advisor and one of his fellow researchers, and spun out into a structure that, if computable, would clearly delineate an entire class of objects never identified before. This is akin to discovering a new species, or a moon around a planet in a different solar system, with the exception that mathematical discovery is not limited by a finite world or universe.
This is different, of course, for people who pursue mathematics for other purposes, such as physicists, engineers, economists and the like. Mathematics is frequently studied and developed with practical purposes in mind, but that's too limiting for a mathematician - like art, it's "Mathmatica gratia mathematicum", math for math's sake.
And I think, were AI to develop, it would be a huge boon to the study of computer science, if only to try and understand it!
Kugai:
*Brain explodes*
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