Posted by
Joe Spinden on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Top-ten-algorithms-tp519062p519069.html
Yet another huge area in which I believe research is very active is computer
graphics.
-----Original Message-----
From:
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Of Joseph L. Breeden
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 10:38 AM
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Subject: [FRIAM] RE: Top ten algorithms
Offering an opposing view to:
> Supporting Owen's contention, it looks like the 'science' part of
computer
> science stopped in the 1960s - only two of the top ten algorithms are
> dated after 1965.
I would suggest that this contention is a bit harsh. If you look at the
physics community (my background), a Top 10 Greatest Contributions to
Physics might look like
Newton (circa 1700): Laws of Motion
Copernicus (circa 1500): De Revolutionibus
Kepler (circa 1600): Laws of Planetary Motion
Avagadro (1811): Atoms and the laws of gases
Faraday (1833) : Discovery of electrons
Rutherford (1911) : Discovery of compact nuclei
Einstein (1920): General Relativity
Bernoulli (circa 1700): Fluid Motion
Theory of Light
The Standard Model of Particle Physics
And so many more. My list is surely distorted (and written very quickly),
but it is quite difficult to argue that anything from the last 20 years
warrants inclusion on a Top 10 list for physics. Even chaos theory (my own
background) is too old and not sufficiently important compared to the rest
(IMHO).
I offer physics as a counter example, because I certainly don't think it is
dead -- just that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. I would argue
that if simulation and data mining are included in "Computer Science", which
they apparently are from reading that Top 10 list, then the field is by no
means dead.
Joseph L. Breeden, Ph.D. | 3900 Paseo del Sol | (p) 505 438-9501 x101
Strategic Analytics Inc. | Santa Fe, NM 87507 | (f) 775 256-8984
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