How exactly does math correlate with computer science? I have taken a couple of programming courses at my local community college and I don’t see how math ties in with it.
Computer science is applied math. Programming is essentially logic (which overlaps with topics in discrete math) and you also use math when you code. Aspects of math that apply to computer science: numerical analysis, set theory, symbolic logic, coding theory, combinatorics, probability, etc. For example, you may be coding an algorithm and need to using various mathematical functions, such as logs. The way code is converted to machine language, which you’d learn in computer architecture, involves math. Additionally, there is a lot of math involved converting between different bases, such as decimal (base 10), binary (base 2), octal (base 8), and hexadecimal (base 16).
This answer really depends on how much math you were exposed with.
Yes, guineagirl96 is perfectly correct so I will only add a bit on top of that answer.
I understand mathematics for most students up to Techniques of Differential Equations seems to be just plug and chug.
Honestly, that’s how mathematics pretty much works in college at the lower levels.
However, once you get past that and finally get exposed to proofs, logic, etc., that is when many math students recognize that computer science and mathematics are very similar (With computer science being more or less applied mathematics)
When you have a problem, you code. And when you code, you have to think logically (step by step) and that idea is like proofs in mathematics (working step by step).
Also, computer science is NOT the study of programming. As you get to the more advanced side of computer science (in the theoretical), computer science is also full of mostly proofs… (which is a huge component of higher math).
So ya, it really depends on how much math you were exposed to. Technically, Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus III, Diff Eq, or Linear Algebra (assuming regular not honors) is not enough for students to get the picture that mathematics is the study of reasoning (since schools focus on the computational side). So, if you have only taken to one of the courses I listed, it’s perfectly normal to think that mathematics is pretty useless… (linear algebra is pretty useful in Computer Science but let us leave that aside for now)
And uhmm… like I said before programming isn’t computer science. In college, you will only be learning how to really program the first two semesters and after that (though you will still be consistently programming), programming really isn’t the main thing. It’s to get the foundations of logic and reasoning correct which mathematics is all about ^^ (depends on the field of computer science but ehh~~)
During your sophomore year is most CS programs, you should be taking a course called Discrete Structures (or Discrete Math at some schools) which is an introduction to Combinatorics and Graph Theory. You can actually take advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Combinatorics and Graph Theory and at many schools, those courses are offered by the CS, Math or jointly.
Coding theory uses a lot of Number Theory which is also an upper-undergraduate course (and can be offered at graduate level).
Computer Graphics makes heavy use of Linear Algebra and vectors.
Of course the more scientific programming will use computational algorithms of Linear Algebra and Diff Equs.
Operations Research helps computer minimum spanning trees which applies to designing network travel. Also, if you need to program how to mix the optimal amount of products for best profit.
With the emergence of Big Data, the area of computational statistics and predictive analysis is a merging of CS and Statistics.
Ever look at a Statistical Distribution?..It’s basically a loop from i = 1 to N of a equation.
For most programming jobs in the real world, there isn’t a lot of math involved. But as others have said, for certain niche fields and applications, you need to know a ton of math.