Scientific stuff!
Scientific computing is development utilizing/creating/maintaining programs/suites which focus on data and scientific processes. These include fields such as bioinformatics, neuroscience, computational physics, numerical analysis, symbolic computation, computational chemistry, and computational biology. Like any development, the requirements are defined, designed, and implemented through processes such as AGILE, with constraints on accuracy and precision of data, where warranted. Sensibly, scientific programs may be as complex or simple as they need be; they can be a simple web form that generates properly formatted formulae via Latex, a mathematical scripting language, or through frameworks such as Mathematica (Wolfram-Alpha software) or Opera (one of many open-source programs, this one handling matrix calculation/transformations.)
Having taken Biology, Oceanography, and a number of heavy Physics courses, I am interested in facilitating and modeling real-life processes in code. It is not my focus, but I enjoy a good puzzle, and algorithmically representing non-digital concepts definitely fits the bill, considering the limitless potential complexity. Neuroscience seems to be all the rage today, in attempting to model human perception,expand artificial intelligence, and assimilate neuron-based storage/processing data for faster/more responsive computing. If we can model human consciousness, we can better understand ourselves. There is a lot of interest in creating a synthetic consciousness, but there are also many ethical and philosophical concerns there as well.
I enjoyed your post very much. It was a good intro into the use of science in computing. I think you should have picked a topic to focus on and shown the reader the advantages of computing in that particular field. At the end of your post you stated that there are many concerns about scientific computing but didn't list any examples. I would be really interested in knowing what those are and the arguments for them. Overall, I think your post is a great intro into science and computing. I look forward to reading more.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Justin!
ReplyDeleteI've visited your blog before and am still impressed. You've provided with a great introduction to the various applications of scientific computing, and how it's accomplished. In particular I enjoyed how you related the classes you've taken and your ambition to use scientific computing to advance these fields. The link you provided was a good bonus as well, it was very interesting. Great post!