Transcript Program Development and Problem Solving

Applications of Computer Science
Mars Exploration Rover Mission
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Part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of
robotic exploration
Mars Rover collects information that would be impossible for
NASA to gather otherwise
 Cannot send a human to Mars
• how to keep humans healthy in space? risk? hard
enough to keep robots alive!
• USA has best track record: 1 out of 3 robotic probes
survive (in Russia, 2 out of 12)
What are the robots doing?
 Radio spectrograms to find elemental content of rocks
 Burrow under surface to find water
 Searching for signs of possible life
Computers allow for continuous gathering of information
Without computers – radio signals have 1 hour delay, no
communication on one side of planet
Missiles and bombs
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Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)
Artificial Intelligence in conjunction with inertial
navigation and GPS
 used to accurately and efficiently identify targets
Smart Bombs
 cameras
 real-time imaging
Computer programs are fast enough
 humans are not
Biology
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Bioinformatics
 biologically oriented computer science techniques and
technologies
Genomics
 the study of genes and their function
Computational Biology
 development of computational tools for solving problems
from molecular biology
 construction of mathematical/statistical models
 development of algorithms
 code implementation on various platforms
 protein structure determination, prediction and modeling
The Manhattan Project
Led to development of the atomic bomb
 Computers played essential roles into the US
weapons program from the earliest on days of the
Manhattan Project
 led to the development of the atomic bomb
 Since then weapons program is one of the most
important driving forces for the development of
powerful large scale scientific computers
 One of the first projects to use large scale finite
element analysis
 when differential equations cannot be solved
analytically, one can divide space up into small
bits (finite elements) and solve them numerically
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Celera / HGP
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The Human Genome Project
Mid-1980's, sufficient scientific breakthroughs had been made for
scientists to begin considering mapping the genome
Watson was one of its early advocates
Congress complied with advocates' requests and funded the effort
In 1990, goal was to sequence the genome by 2005 at estimated cost
of $3 billion dollars
Eight years after it began, just 7% of the genome had been sequenced
Celera Genomics (Celera = “Quick” or “Swift” in Latin)
1998, Craig Ventner (with PE Biosystems) founded Celera Genomics
Venter said he would fully sequence the human genome by 2001 for
just $200 million
Celera utilized immense computing power (it is said to have the most
powerful computing center outside of the Pentagon) in pursuit of the
goal
The Human Genome
February 15, 2001: HGP consortium publishes its working
draft in Nature …
… and Celera publishes its draft in Science on February 16
Computational chemistry
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Computer methods are used to solve chemical
problems which would be intractable or even
impossible via experimental methods
Computational chemistry established itself as
mainstay of modern industrial and academic
chemistry
 now acknowledged as a subdivision of chemistry
alongside the more traditional ones
 rapid emergence of this discipline with
applications throughout all areas of chemistry has
impacted the work of all chemists and significantly
increased efficiency in a number of fields.
Drug development, molecular modeling, …
Computational physics
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Reliable and accurate solution of scientific problems
by numerical computation, algorithms and data
analysis
 Simulation, visualization and modeling of physical
phenomena
Examples
 characterize radiation properties of the Earth's
upper atmosphere
 develop new remote sensing techniques for better
understanding the upper atmosphere
Computational archaeology
Umbrella term for a variety of approaches that use
computer-based methods for the study of archaeological
methods
 Use of computer aided design (CAD) for the
reconstruction and analysis of archaeological remains
 Geographical information systems (GIS) for spatial
analysis
 Remote sensing for landscape analysis and
archaeological survey
 Computer modeling and computer simulation of human
behavior
 Variety of other forms of analysis dependent on computer
software such as architectural analysis
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