How important is physics in computer science?

[leewilliam236]

I was looking at assist.org. A website for community college students that lists the courses you need to take at a CC in order to transfer to a UC or CSU. I'm a CompSci major, and realized that everyone of the articulation agreements required 3-4 quarters of Physics. I'm just wondering, why is Physics important in Computer Science? Are there any real life examples of how it's applied?

 

[berkeman]

I was looking at assist.org. A website for community college students that lists the courses you need to take at a CC in order to transfer to a UC or CSU. I'm a CompSci major, and realized that everyone of the articulation agreements required 3-4 quarters of Physics. I'm just wondering, why is Physics important in Computer Science? Are there any real life examples of how it's applied?

At my undergrad university (UC Davis), all Engineering majors were required to take at least 3 intro physics courses (calculus-based, technical track). It's part of your general technical education, As for when you may find practical application of the courses in your CS education and work, that just depends on what kind of CS work you end up doing. Even if you just end up coding video games, you will probably benefit from a basic knowledge about physics.

 

[Crass_Oscillator]

I was looking at assist.org. A website for community college students that lists the courses you need to take at a CC in order to transfer to a UC or CSU. I'm a CompSci major, and realized that everyone of the articulation agreements required 3-4 quarters of Physics. I'm just wondering, why is Physics important in Computer Science? Are there any real life examples of how it's applied?

Some CS majors head for career tracks that require more electrical engineering, whether in graduate school or industry, and you need at least basic physics to grasp circuits, among other things.

Subfields in graduate school include computational biology, robotics, and even some machine learning if you are collaborating with electrical engineers working on, say, specialized hardware for neural networks.