ABSTRACT
The discipline of computer science has evolved dynamically since the creation of the device that now generally goes by that name, that is, the electronic digital computer with random-access memory in which instructions and data are stored together and hence the instructions can change as the program is running. The first working computers were the creation not of scientific theory, but of electrical and electronic engineering practice applied to a longstanding effort to mechanize calculation. The first applications of the computer to scientific calculation and electronic data processing were tailored to the machines on which they ran, and in many respects they reflected earlier forms of calculating and tabulating devices. Originally designed as a tool of numerical calculation, in particular for the solution of non-linear differential equations for which no analytical solution was available, the computer led immediately to the new field of numerical analysis. There, speed and efficiency of computation determined the initial agenda, as mathematicians wrestled large calculations into machines with small memories and with basic operations measured in milliseconds.
