Allan Dystrup - Computer Science

1. Life

Life is no doubt the most interesting aspect of - well Life ! The problem of course being analogous to the difficulty of a mirror trying to reflect itself (or even reflecting another mirror for that matter, - not to speak of the difficulty of a mirror seeking to grasp the essence of "mirrors" as such. - Well go speak to professor Kant about that, right down the web somewere... :)

For now, let's just peel off the the philosophy and go for the more juicy parts of the fruit of Life : what are the interesting activities here on Earth on our short travel from craddle to grave (OK, If you really want to skip the foreplay too and go for the "hardcore" of the apple, have a look at the poetry and zen in the Haiku section of these pages).

Obviously two of the areas of interest (which also happens to be my main educational degrees in science :) must be Biology - the study of organic matter, replication, competition, selection, evolution - giving rise to genes, cells, organisms - displaying all those beautyfully complex patterns of structure, function and behaviour.

But why stop at Nature's embroideries in organic matter ? Computers - Look at computers - at

Logic written in sand (ok: silicon then) - look at them as a tool for the study of - well Logic ! (Yes I know, - yet another instance of "the mirror problem" as outlined above, but now using a convenient "standin", which we can observe from a safe distance)

Basically just devices for storing ("remembering"), logically transforming ("computing") and accepting / presenting ("input/output") electric signals, but designed with a binary digital interpretation of these "in mind". And of course these "digits" may represent anything from love letters ("written in the sand...") to instructions for processing other digits ("programs").

This concept of interpretation gets really interesting, when we empower computers with the ability of reflection ("mirror, mirror on the wall..."), that is : feed them with programs, that may analyze and transform other programs, - such as themselves ("Alas, poor Yorick ! ....").

Enter the basic questions of computational devices (including nerve tissue in the area of Biology) :

Algorithms, complexity and computability (what problems are solvable / unsolvable)