6 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Descriptive Knowledge, Polish Notation, Metalanguage

• School: MIT
• Department: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Course: 6
• Professor: Hal Abelson

Document Summary

Prof. abelson opens the lecture with the following definition . Computer science it"s not really a science, and not about computers. He supports the first half of this definition with the idea that computer science might be engineering or art, but that it is more akin to magic than science. A process can be thought of as like a magical spirit that lives in the computer. A pattern of rules called a procedure is like a magical spell, and the language that these spells are written in is lisp. These are the only references in this lecture to computer science as magic. since a wizard graces the cover of the course text and the introductory slides, i hope the idea will be fleshed out as some point. The second half of the definition, that computer science isn"t about computers is supported with the following observations: Physics is not really about particle accelerators. Biology is not about microscopes and petri dishes.