In the beginning...

Before studying computer science, it makes sense to ask: what is it? Computer science is the study of computers.

Ha, okay, what is a computer? That's a more interesting question. The formal definition(s) (yes there is more than one) are a topic for another time. But at its core, a computer is a thing that can do calculations (or computations if you will) and store the results somewhere. That's it. The power of this approach comes from two details: the reuslts of previous calculations can be used as the input of the next one; and branching.

Branching is more commonly though of as "if then" statements. If you are familiar with any programming language (including Python), then you have seen the mechanics of branching at work. What is fascinating is that from a collection of numbers and the ability to add them and branch, we can build all the things computers do today.

Most future posts will be more detailed and more concrete, but it seemed only fitting to start a blog about theoretical foundations with a theoretical post. If you want to dive into the theory of computation further, the two formal definitions of a computer are a Turing Machine and the Lambda Calculus.