Catalog entry:
What is Computer Science about? How did we get from counting to programming? What is a supercompiler? Why are some things easy to compute, some hard, and some impossible? Answers in pictures. Learn how hardness is used for security.
Synopsis:
The course is designed to provide a shortcut to the concept of a one-way function. Cybersecurity and modern cryptography are based on that concept. The shortcut is possible by highlighting the basic concepts of computer science in string diagrams, a computationally complete graphic language, which is derived incrementally.
Time and place:
- Tuesdays and Thursdays 3-4 pm from August 23 until December 8
- Kuykendall Hall 213
Lectures:
- Introduction
- Successor: Counting, induction
- Addition: State, coinduction
- Multiplication: Program, computability
- Iteration: Metaprogram, software
- Resource: Complexity, one-way function