Eric Roberts > courses > soco

Sophomore College
The Intellectual Excitement of Computer Science

Catalog description

All too often, students today have come to equate computer science with programming, oblivious to the fact that computer science is a much broader field with a rich intellectual tradition. This seminar introduces students to several of the most interesting and challenging problems in computer science, exploring a range of topics including the analysis of algorithms, computability, cryptography, hardware design, and artificial intelligence. This year's course, which is also open to students from Oxford University, will place particular emphasis on British contributions to computer science, including the work of Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, and Tony Hoare. Students are expected to undertake a small-group research project examining other intellectually exciting aspects of the field. No prior experience with computer science is required, but an interest in and enthusiasm for problem-solving will help enormously.

Student projects

2008-09
  The Colossus Machine
  Modeling Natural Systems
  Tony Hoare

2005-06
  Accessible Technology in the 21st Century
  Hacking: Evolution of the Virtual Underground
  The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World
  The 64-Bit Processor Revolution

2004-05
  Philosophical Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence
  Automata Theory
  Modern Cryptography: Theory and Applications
  Natural Language Processing

2003-04
  DNA Computing
  Fault-Tolerant Computing
  Artificial Intelligence: Strategies and Tactics for Intelligent Search
  Internet 2
  Wireless Computing

2001-02
  Cellular Automata
  Distributed Computing
  Human-Computer Interaction
  Search-Engine Technologies

2000-01
  Computers and the Human Genome Project
  Data Compression
  Neural Networks
  RISC architectures

1999-00
  Automatic Theorem Proving
  Computational Biology
  Information Theory
  The Internet—History and Protocols

1998-99
  Babbage’s Machines
  Game Theory and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
  Randomized Algorithms
  Robot Motion Planning

1997-98
  Computer Vision
  Cryptography
  Genetic Algorithms
  Ray-Tracing

Last modified on Thu Sep 3 23:56:43 2009 by eroberts