ICS 222: Basic Concepts of Computer Science

Catalog entry:

What is Computer Science about? How did we get from counting to programming? What is a supercompiler? Why are some things easy to compute, some hard, and some impossible? Answers in pictures. Learn how hardness is used for security.

 Synopsis:

The course is designed to provide a shortcut to the concept of a one-way function. Cybersecurity and modern cryptography are based on that concept. The shortcut is possible by highlighting the basic concepts of computer science in string diagrams, a computationally complete graphic language, which is derived incrementally.

Time and place:

  • Mondays and Wednesdays 9:00-10:15 from August 26 until December 11
  • KELLER 403

Textbook:

  • Dusko Pavlovic, Programs as Diagrams: From Categorical Computability to Computable Categories, Springer, 2023.
    ( available from Amazon)