A Celebration of Computer Sciences at Harvard

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A Celebration of Computer Sciences at Harvard and in honor of the 70th birthday of Harry Lewis

It is not generally known that the first digital computer in the world was built at Harvard under Professor Howard Aiken in the 1940s, the Mark I, to compute ballistic tables during WWII. The computer was electromechanical since electronics were too expansive and unreliable at that time (you can find permanent exhibit of Mark I at the Smithsonian in Washington DC and at the Science Center of Harvard). In the early 50s, almost anybody who contributed to computer science studied under Aiken at the Computation laboratory that bear his name. Then in the 70s came the legendary computer science teacher and education leader, Professor Harry Lewis. I myself spent three years in the Comp Lab before drifting into the system control field. It is thus fitting that I attend the above celebration on April 19, 2017. Of course after more than 50 years, except for the honoree, I do not recognize anyone at the conference. All the speakers by tradition are former students of Harry Lewis. They have since then ventured into all kinds of fields of endeavor from finance to biology wherever computer science technologies are being used. Excellent speakers they are, I did not feel lost and came away with new appreciation of the subject of computer sciences:

· The conventional wisdom is that if you are interested in the Humanities but not sure what to study, major in history or Literature. Similarly you choose Physics if you are not sure about which branch of Engineering you want. Now, Computer Science is the choice if you have any aptitude for science.

· In modern civilization, we take things like signing a check or making an insurance claim a simple straight forward transaction. What we don’t often realize is the vast amount of back stories and organizations involved with such a transaction. From the banks, the paper processing, fact checking,to the technologies, the bureaucracies, and the human handling, there are literally hundreds of steps, machines, and human being involved. In computer science, the same things and complexities are involved with what we know as the“Server-less CLOUD” which everyone uses.

· Computer language has also undergone tremendous evolution from the 1950s when I was briefly involved. The Backus-Naur Form has become a full blown mathematical- computational language. It can describe the operations of a complex program without usuing a single word except a set of symbols using what is called Metanotations.

· Harry Lewis was celebrated as a person/teacher who

1. Cares,

2. Values character over knowledge,

3. Does what is right over popularity.

For additional write up about and tribute to Harry Lewis see the Harvard Magazine article http://harvardmagazine.com/2017/04/lewis-to-retire-someday?utm_source=Harvard+Magazine+eNews&utm_campaign=89626b7387-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_04_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d59fecc95b-89626b7387-85101929