INT 94PL
Freshman Seminar:
What is Computing?
Spring 2012
Description:
Computer technology has produced many impressive gadgets that surround us every day. However, its foundations are still a mystery to many. The purpose of this seminar is to discuss what computing is, with the hope of getting some insights about its essence and its future potential.
Instructor:
Tevfik Bultan
Seminar webpage: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~bultan/courses/94PL/
Seminar blog: http://whatiscomputing.blogspot.com/
Meeting time:
11:00-11:50, Wednesday
Location: GIRV 1108
Enrollment Code: 56259
Units: This will be a 1 unit seminar
General Information
Each week we are going to discuss a topic about computing. I will
post my views about each discussion topic to this
blog.
I will ask you to do three things each week:
- Attend the seminar and participate in the discussion.
- Read my blog post about that
topic we discussed.
- Send me (via email or by posting to the blog) your comments about that post.
Discussions
Week 1 (April 4):
Transformers
Week 2 (April 11):
Universality
Week 3 (April 18):
Everything is a number.
Week 4 (April 25):
Lego Lab
Week 5 (May 2):
Recipes for Computing
Weeks 6 and 7 (May 9, 16):
Timeline of Computer Science
Week 8 (May 23):
Biological Computers
Week 9 (May 30):
Limitations
Week 10 (June 6):
Quantum Computing, guest lecture by Professor Wim van Dam.