0.0 What is Computer Science?

programming language

a language that humans can write and computers can understand

computation

calculating a solution to some problem through the use of mathematical calculations such as number-crunching, permuting, searching, sorting, modeling, etc.

algorithms

efficient and broad solutions to problems that have been formalized and generalized; recipes for solving problems made up of a series of finite steps

pattern recognition

identifying abstract similarities across solutions to apply existing solutions to new problems

program

solutions to problems written in languages that computers can understand

computational thinking

solving a problem by breaking it down into multiple steps involving calculation

computer science

the theory and application of computation to systematically and rigorously solve problems