Question: what kind of work do you do on the computer? Is it related to science?

David Corne answered on 14 Jun 2011:

A lot of science is about understanding how things work, and seeing if we can predict accurately what they will do. Computers are used lots and lots to build and simulate systems. E.g. all the weather prediction you see on TV is done with computers. If you have a theory about something, usually a computer is the best thing to use to test the theory, by writing a program that basically shows you what will happen if your theory is right. Computer science is itself a science – it’s about understanding how complex systems work, and how we can predict what they will do, or design them in a way that they work how we want. Here are a couple of things I have done with my computer: by simulating gravity and spaceship thrusters (with an ex-student and now lecturer in Coventry) we have looked into how to figure out the best path for a probe that tries to destroy an asteroid before it hits the Earth. By simulating the action of chemotherapy drugs on a tumour (with colleagues in Aberdeen), we have looked into how to design the best pattern of drug doses so that a patient recovers from cancer without too many ill effects. Both of these things can be done with computer models — for each of them you can try thousands and thousands of ways to do it, and figure out the best. In both cases, if you did your trial and error testing on the real thing, it would either costs trillions of pounds, take hundreds of years, or kill thousands of people. So, computers have their uses.