The Science in Computer Science

Computing has been deeply involved in science since the beginning. A science vision pervaded the field through the 1950s, and then faded as technology development drew most of our energy through the 1980s. The pioneers who planned and built the first electronic computers were strongly motivated by visions of computers advancing science. The two most obvious ways were the numerical solution of mathematical models of physical processes, and the analysis of large datasets compiled from experiments. Computer science became a recognized academic field of study in 1962 with the founding of computer science departments at Purdue and Stanford. These departments maintained strong faculties in mathematical software, which directly supported science. In the initial years of the field, most computing people devoted their energy to building the systems that could realize the visionary dreams of the founders. By the late 1970s, the computing industry was recruiting system people so vigorously that university departments were experiencing a 'brain drain' of systems-oriented faculty.