Quo Vadimus: Computer Science in a Decade

un rapport paru dans CACM de June 1981, Vol 24, number , pp. 351 et s.

Pour tous les enseignants et chercheurs en informatique ... bof bof bof

Quelques extraits :

-" Computer science is a science devoted to the enhancement of the mental abilities of the human being.
I suggest that computer science has the same type of role to play as engineering or medice. Engineering is a science devoted to the enhancement of physical abilities of the human being. Medecine is devoted to fixing up the human engine." Reddy

- "I am deeply convinced that computer science does not obey theses and other paradigms from physical sciences."

- "The physicist proposes a theory about something which exists. We want to develop concepts to build languages and analyse them. They do not exists."

- "As a matter of fact, I think that this science would be in much worse shape if people would not have come in from other areas with well established research methodology. I'm a little bit dubious whether the current people we are training have the right methodology, because they do not come out of the well established sciences and computer scientists have not yet fully understood the new paradigmes of this science."

- "For example, recall the famous Rutherford experiment of scattering of alpha particles (emitted by a radioactive source) as they passed through thin sheets of metal. Rutherford and Geiger had observed slight deflection of some of the particles on many occasions, but it led to a startling observation when Ruhterford suggested that the particles may be scattered through a large angle. A few days aftert this suggestion it was indeed observed that some of the alpha particles came even backward! Rutherford claimed: "It was quite the most incredible event that ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you."
What could stop a particle rushing through space at a speed of some 10 000 miles a second?... Ruhterford experimented carefully and though deeply. He did not rush to conclusions, but early in 1911 he walked into Geiger"s office humming "Onward Christina Soldiers" as he did in moments of singular well-being or triumph. " I know what the atom looks like!" he told the astounded Geiger.
This single experiment showed that the old concept of matter was wrong and that a fundamentally new model had to be constructed. As is well-known, what Rutherford described to the astounded Geiger was the modern version of a planetary model of the atom. I have never seen anything equivalent to this experince in computer science and I will conjecture that we are not going to encounter in computer experiments of this nature which force a fundamental change in our viewpoint."


Hartmanis