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What is theoretical computer science?

(cacm.acm.org)
166 points levlaz | 1 comments | 18 Oct 24 06:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.336s | source
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cjfd ◴[18 Oct 24 07:49 UTC] No.41877201[source]▶
He says he affiliates a bit with physics. That is what I studied when I was young. Yes, physics attempts to concern itself with the real world. For instance, nobody in their right mind would have anything to do with quantum mechanics if it wasn't how the real world operated. In that sense it seems to me that computer science is much closer to mathematics. The computer is an artificial system constructed to be relatively easy to reason about.
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globular-toast ◴[18 Oct 24 08:10 UTC] No.41877325[source]▶
The Turing machine is an artificial system constructed to be easy to reason about. The computer on my desk is most certainly not!
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cjfd ◴[18 Oct 24 09:14 UTC] No.41877631[source]▶
Well, it depends. Have you ever considered writing a word processor in a Turing machine?
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1. anthk ◴[18 Oct 24 13:39 UTC] No.41879374[source]▶
Not a Turing Machine, but with a Lisp interpreter and few atoms (Lambda Calculus in the end) you can state the peano axioms, then a basic arithmetic calculator, and after that, a basic algebra solver in minutes.

https://justine.lol/sectorlisp2/