What is Computer Science?
Computer science is broadly defined as the study of computers and computing. It encompasses the study of the software and hardware components of computers with their theoretical and algorithmic foundation concepts and finally in their use for processing information. Computer science broadly covers the topics of algorithms, data structures, network design and security, artificial intelligence just to name a few. Fields of Mathematics, Electrical engineering, Physics and Statistics form important foundation stones of computer science. Since computers are used in almost every field imaginable to humankind, it has emerged as the top field to study and conduct research and development in today’s world.
Computer science emerged as a field of study in the 1960s, about two decades after the advent of the first computer. As we have seen earlier, data is presented in a binary format to the computer. Using mathematics, any data could be represented as a combination of 0s and 1s. The use of hexadecimal and octal number systems make it easy to represent large data in binary form. Computers started out using electrical switches to switch on and off for the two binary states. The invention of MOSFET and integrated circuits have resulted in faster and smaller computers.
Data processing forms an integral part of computer systems. Computers are used to store, retrieve, process and infer from large sets of data. Programming is another important part of computer science. The computer is given a set of instructions in the form of a program. There are numerous languages such as C, C++, COBOL, Python etc, all of which were developed for various purposes. Computer graphics and human computer interaction is an ever evolving area of interest. Knowing how to program is an important skill for computer scientists. But computer scientists are also involved in the development of algorithms and applications for various needs as well as study of software/hardware and ways to improve their performance. Computer science is a continuously evolving field, where the sky's the limit to all that is possible!
