Excursions
in Computer Science
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted."
Albert Einstein
Course: Computer Science 308-199A (A First-Year
Seminar Course, 25 students max)
Title: Excursions in Computer Science (3
credits,
3 hours)
Time & Place:
Instructor: Godfried Toussaint
Phone:
Office hours:
Teaching Assistant:
Course prerequisites: High School level
mathematics.
Performance assessment:
- 7 assignments at 10% each.
- 1 class test (near end of term) at 20%.
- 1 oral class presentation (20-30 min at end of
term) at 10%.
Text book and materials:
- A. K. Dewdney, The Turing Omnibus: 61
Excursions in Computer
Science, Computer Science Press, Rockville, U.S.A., 1989.
- In-class handouts (technical reports and
reprints)
on topics
not in the text.
- Reading assignments of material on the World
Wide Web.
Reference books and papers:
- A. K. Dewdney, Introduction
to Computer Science: Bits of Theory, Bytes of Practice, W. H.
Freeman
& Co., San Francisco, 1996.
- A. K. Dewdney, The Tinkertoy Computer and
Other
Machinations,
W. H. Freeman & Co., New York, 1993.
- G. T. Toussaint, "A new look at Euclid's second
proposition," The
Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 15, No. 3, 1993, pp. 12-23.
- J. Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human
Reason,
W.
H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco, 1976.
- R. Rucker, Mind Tools, Houghton Mifflin
Co., Boston,
1987. Good for Turing machines.
- D. M. Davis, The Nature and Power of
Mathematics,
Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1993. Good
for cryptography and fractals.
- J. G. Brookshear, Computer Science: An
Overview,
The
Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc., 1994.
Reminder:
- McGill University values
academic integrity.
Therefore all students must understand the meaning and consequences of
cheating, plagiarism and other academic offences under the Code of
Student
Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures (see www.mcgill.ca/integrity for
more information).