num_pages: 479
description: Computer science as an academic discipline began in the 1960s. Emphasis was on programming languages compilers operating systems and the mathematical theory that supported these areas. Courses in theoretical computer science covered finite automata regular expressions context-free languages and computability. In the 1970s the study of algorithms was added as an important component of theory. The emphasis was on making computers useful. Today a fundamental change is taking place and the focus is more on a wealth of applications. There are many reasons for this change. The merging of computing and communications has played an important role. The enhanced ability to observe collect and store data in the natural sciences in commerce and in other fields calls for a change in our understanding of data and how to handle it in the modern setting. The emergence of the web and social networks as central aspects of daily life presents both opportunities and challenges for theory.While traditional areas of computer science remain highly important increasingly researchers of the future will be involved with using computers to understand and extract usable information from massive data arising in applications not just how to make computers useful on specific well-defined problems. With this in mind we have written this book to cover the theory we expect to be useful in the next 40 years just as an understanding of automata theory algorithms and related topics gave students an advantage in the last 40 years. One of the major changes is an increase in emphasis on probability statistics and numerical methods.Early drafts of the book have been used for both undergraduate and graduate courses. Background material needed for an undergraduate course has been put in the appendix. For this reason the appendix has homework problems.
language: English
title: Foundations of Data Science
publisher: None