Computational Thinking Jeannette M Wing President s Professor of

Computational Thinking Jeannette M. Wing President’s Professor of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University and Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate National Science Foundation 2008 Jeannette M. Wing EU MURS Jeannette M. Wing

Six Questions 1. Minor -> Major Dialogues 2. Methods for Science-Society Dialogue 3. Which subjects should give rise to this dialogue? 4. Should Dialogue be European in scope? 5. Who should initiate and organize the Dialogues? 6. What is scientists’ responsibility in the Dialogues? EU MURS 2 Jeannette M. Wing

Six Questions 1. Minor -> Major Dialogues 2. Methods for Science-Society Dialogue 3. Which subjects should give rise to this dialogue? Computational Thinking 4. Should Dialogue be European in scope? No 5. Who should initiate and organize the Dialogues? 6. What is scientists’ responsibility in the Dialogues? EU MURS 3 Jeannette M. Wing

My Grand Vision for Society • Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21 st Century. – Just like reading, writing, and arithmetic. – Imagine every child knowing how to think like a computer scientist! – Incestuous: Computing and computers will enable the spread of computational thinking. – In research: scientists, engineers, …, historians, artists – In education: K-12 students and teachers, undergrads, … J. M. Wing, “Computational Thinking, ” CACM Viewpoint, March 2006, pp. 33 -35. http: //www. cs. cmu. edu/~wing/ EU MURS 4 Jeannette M. Wing

Examples of Computational Thinking • • • • How difficult is this problem and how best can I solve it? – Theoretical computer science gives precise meaning to these and related questions and their answers. C. T. is thinking recursively. C. T. is reformulating a seemingly difficult problem into one which we know how to solve. – Reduction, embedding, transformation, simulation C. T. is choosing an appropriate representation or modeling the relevant aspects of a problem to make it tractable. C. T. is interpreting code as data and data as code. C. T. is using abstraction and decomposition in tackling a large complex task. C. T. is judging a system’s design for its simplicity and elegance. C. T. is type checking, as a generalization of dimensional analysis. C. T. is prevention, detection, and recovery from worst-case scenarios through redundancy, damage containment, and error correction. C. T. is modularizing something in anticipation of multiple users and prefetching and caching in anticipation of future use. C. T. is calling gridlock deadlock and avoiding race conditions when synchronizing meetings. C. T. is using the difficulty of solving hard AI problems to foil computing agents. C. T. is taking an approach to solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science. Please tell me your favorite examples of computational thinking! EU MURS 5 Jeannette M. Wing

The Two A’s Behind Computational Thinking • Computing is the automation of our abstractions – Abstractions are our “mental” tools; machines are our “metal” tools. – They give us the audacity and ability to scale. • Computational thinking – choosing the right abstractions, operating at multiple layers of abstraction, defining relationships between layers – choosing the right automaton “computer” for the task EU MURS 6 Jeannette M. Wing

Research Implications EU MURS 7 Jeannette M. Wing

CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Biology - Shotgun algorithm expedites sequencing of human genome - DNA sequences are strings in a language - Protein structures can be modeled as knots - Protein kinetics can be modeled as computational processes - Cells as a self-regulatory system are like electronic circuits Credit: Wikipedia Brain Science - Modeling the brain as a computer - Vision as a feedback loop - Analyzing f. MRI data with machine learning EU MURS Credit: Live. Science 8 Jeannette M. Wing

CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Chemistry [Madden, Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh] - Atomistic calculations are used to explore chemical phenomena - Optimization and searching algorithms identify best chemicals for improving reaction conditions to improve yields Credit: University of Minnesota Credit: NASA Geology - Modeling the earth’s surface to the sun, from the inner core to the surface - Abstraction boundaries and hierarchies of complexity model the earth and our atmosphere EU MURS 9 Jeannette M. Wing

CT in Other Sciences, Math, and Engineering Astronomy - Sloan Digital Sky Server brings a telescope to every child - KD-trees help astronomers analyze very large multi-dimensional datasets Credit: SDSS Mathematics - Discovering E 8 Lie Group: 18 mathematicians, 4 years and 77 hours of supercomputer time (200 billion numbers). Profound implications for physics (string theory) - Four-color theorem proof Credit: Wikipedia Engineering (electrical, civil, mechanical, aero & astro, …) Credit: Wikipedia - Calculating higher order terms implies more precision, which implies reducing weight, waste, costs in fabrication - Boeing 777 tested via computer simulation alone, not in a wind tunnel EU MURS 10 Jeannette M. Wing Credit: Boeing

CT for Society Economics - Automated mechanism design underlies electronic commerce, e. g. , ad placement, on-line auctions, kidney exchange - Internet marketplace requires revisiting Nash equilibria model Social Sciences - Social networks explain phenomena such as My. Space, You. Tube - Statistical machine learning is used for recommendation and reputation services, e. g. , Netflix, affinity card EU MURS 11 Jeannette M. Wing

CT for Society Medicine - Robotic surgery - Electronic health records require privacy technologies - Scientific visualization enables virtual colonoscopy Humanities Credit: University of Utah - What do you do with a million books? Nat’l Endowment for the Humanities Inst of Museum and Library Services Law - Stanford CL approaches include AI, temporal logic, EU MURS state machines, process algebras, petri nets - POIROT Project on fraud investigation is creating a detailed ontology of European law 12 - Sherlock Project on crime scene investigation Jeannette M. Wing

CT for Society Entertainment - Games - Movies Credit: Dreamworks SKG - Dreamworks uses HP data center to render. Shrek and Madagascar - Lucas Films uses 2000 -node data center to produce Pirates of the Caribbean. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Arts - Art (e. g. , Robotticelli) - Drama - Music - Photography EU MURS Credit: Christian Moeller 13 Sports Credit: Wikipedia - Lance Armstrong’s cycling computer tracks man and machine statistics - Synergy Sports analyzes digital videos NBA games Jeannette M. Wing

Educational Implications EU MURS 14 Jeannette M. Wing

Pre-K to Grey • K-6, 7 -9, 10 -12 • Undergraduate courses – Freshmen year • “Ways to Think Like a Computer Scientist” aka Principles of Computing – Upper-level courses • Graduate-level courses – Computational arts and sciences • E. g. , entertainment technology, computational linguistics, …, computational finance, …, computational biology, computational astrophysics • Post-graduate – Executive and continuing education, senior citizens – Teachers, not just students EU MURS 15 Jeannette M. Wing

Question and Challenge to Community What are effective ways of learning (teaching) computational thinking by (to) children? - What concepts can students best learn when? What should we teach when? What is our analogy to numbers in K, algebra in 7, and calculus in 12? - We uniquely also should ask how best to integrate The Computer with learning and teaching the concepts. EU MURS 16 Jeannette M. Wing

Reach Through NSF EU MURS 17 Jeannette M. Wing

CDI: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation Computational Thinking for Science and Engineering • Paradigm shift – Not just our metal tools (transistors and wires) but also our mental tools (abstractions and methods) • It’s about partnerships and transformative research. – To innovate in/innovatively use computational thinking; and – To advance more than one science/engineering discipline. • 1800 Letters of Intent, 1300 Preliminary Proposals, 200 Final Proposals, 36 Awards • FY 08: ~$50 M invested by all directorates and offices EU MURS 18 Jeannette M. Wing

Range of Disciplines in CDI Awards • • • • • Aerospace engineering Atmospheric sciences Biochemistry Biophysics Chemical engineering Communications science and engineering Computer science Geosciences Linguistics Materials engineering Mathematics Mechanical engineering Molecular biology Nanocomputing Neuroscience Robotics Social sciences Statistical physics … advances via Computational Thinking EU MURS 19 Jeannette M. Wing

Range of Societal Issues Addressed • • • EU MURS Cancer therapy Climate change Environment Visually impaired Water 20 Jeannette M. Wing

Reach Through NSF on Education CRA-E Computing Community ACM-Ed CSTA NSF National Academies Rebooting Computational Thinking workshops K-12 BPC EU MURS CPATH AP 21 Jeannette M. Wing

Help Spread the Word Make computational thinking commonplace! To fellow faculty, students, researchers, administrators, teachers, parents, principals, guidance counselors, school boards, teachers’ unions, congressmen, policy makers, … EU MURS 22 Jeannette M. Wing

Thank you! EU MURS Jeannette M. Wing

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