Computing

Key people

• Alan TuringEnglish computer scientist (1912–1954)
• Tim Berners-LeeEnglish computer scientist (born 1955)
• Charles BabbageEnglish mathematician, philosopher, and engineer (1791–1871)
• Donald KnuthAmerican computer scientist and mathematician (born 1938)

Timeline

• 2300 BCThe earliest known tool for use in computation is the abacus, and it is thought to have been invented in Babylon circa between 2700 and 2300 BC.
• 1968The first reference to the term is the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference, and was intended to provoke thought regarding the perceived software crisis at the time.
• 2011By 2011, researchers had entangled 14 qubits.

Read

• Advances in Computers, Volume 49 (Advances in Computers)Marvin V. Zelkowitz · 1995Book
• Computer NetworksAndrew S. Tanenbaum · 1981Book
• Computer NetworkingJames F. Kurose · 1900Book
• Computer ConceptsJune Jamrich Parsons · 1996Book

Watch

• What is Cloud Computing ?Apna CollegeVideo
• COMPUTER SCIENCE explained in 17 MinutesWacky ScienceVideo
• History Of Computer | Full History And Evolution Of Computers Till DateInvention FlexVideo

Listen

• The WAN ShowLinus Tech TipsPodcast
• Accidental Tech PodcastMarco Arment, Casey Liss, John SiracusaPodcast
• The Talk Show With John GruberDaring Fireball / John GruberPodcast
• The Pragmatic EngineerGergely OroszPodcast

Voices to follow

• Mark Graham@geoplace · XProfessor of Internet Geography at the Oxford Internet Institute
• Joseph M. Reagle Jr.@jmreagle · XAmerican media scholar (1972-)
• Matei Zaharia@matei_zaharia · XRomanian-Canadian computer scientist and engineer
• Kai-Fu Lee@kaifulee · XTaiwanese businessman

By the numbers

• 73.6Internet users (%) — global, 2025 (World Bank)
• 111.5Mobile subs / 100 — global, 2025 (World Bank)

Debates

• Should AI development be heavily regulated by governments?One view: Yes, regulation is crucial to prevent misuse, ensure ethical development, and protect society from potential harm. · Another: No, excessive regulation stifles innovation and slows progress, making it harder to develop beneficial AI technologies.Open question
• Is open-source software inherently more secure than proprietary software?One view: Yes, its code is publicly available for review, allowing a community of developers to find and fix vulnerabilities quickly. · Another: No, its public nature means attackers can also scrutinize the code for weaknesses, potentially exploiting them before fixes are made.Open question
• Should personal data always be owned and controlled solely by the individual?One view: Yes, individuals have a fundamental right to privacy and control over their own information, preventing exploitation. · Another: No, sharing data can enable valuable services, scientific research, and economic growth, benefiting society as a whole.Open question

Glossary

• AlgorithmA set of step-by-step instructions for solving a problem or completing a task.
• DataFacts, figures, or information collected and stored by computers, often for analysis.
• Cloud ComputingDelivering computing services—including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet ('the cloud').
• Machine LearningA type of artificial intelligence that allows computer systems to learn from data without being explicitly programmed.
• CybersecurityThe practice of protecting computer systems, networks, and data from digital attacks.
• Programming LanguageA formal language used to communicate instructions to a computer, like Python or Java.

Careers

Roles this can lead toward

Student research

Published policy papers by One Young India delegates — every delegate leaves published under their own name.

• The Plasticity Paradox: Technology’s Impact on The Adolescent BrainNeeti Singh
• Rethinking Education in the Digital Age: Bridging the Gap Between Technology and AccessGovind Mehra
• Untangling The Threads of the TikTok Ban's Impact On Global Trade via Trade, Technology, and DiplomacyAanya Menon

Threads 7

Where this connects to other fields — and why it's worth knowing.

• Social Institutions Sociology

  Computers work in layers, where each level hides the messy details below it behind a simple button or screen, so you can use an app without knowing the wiring. Big bureaucracies pull the exact same trick: a single clerk handles one form without needing to understand the entire government. Both survive by hiding complexity behind a clean, simple face.

• Craft, Fashion & the Made Object Arts

  In the early 1800s a weaver named Jacquard fed punched cards into a loom, and the holes told it which threads to lift to weave a pattern in silk. That is exactly how the first computers worked a century later: cards with holes, telling a machine what to do step by step. So the code running your phone traces its family tree straight back to a fabric-weaving machine.

• Writing Systems Literature

  Older writing had a different symbol for every word, thousands to memorize. The alphabet was a genius shortcut: a couple dozen letters can spell any word that exists. That's compression, squeezing endless things into a few reusable pieces, and it's the exact same idea behind how computers encode everything, from text to video, using just 0s and 1s.

• The Industrial Revolution History

  A weaving machine once used punched cards, cards with holes poked in them, to automatically make fancy silk patterns. A man named Babbage saw that and thought: what if a machine followed punched-card instructions to do math? That spark became the computer. In a real sense, the computer was dreamed up in a fabric factory.

• The World Wars History

  To crack Nazi secret codes in World War Two, British teams had to build machines that could rip through calculations no human could. Those code-breaking machines were the ancestors of the computer you're using right now. Modern computing was basically born from a wartime race to read the enemy's mail.

• Memory and Its Failures Psychology

  A hard drive keeps a file exactly the same no matter how often you open it. Your memory does the opposite: every time you recall something, your brain rewrites it, so the memory you replay most is the one you've edited most. The stories you're surest about are often the least trustworthy.

• Black Holes Science

  There's a wild theory that all the information swallowed by a black hole is stored on its flat outer surface, like data on a disk. If true, the densest object in the universe is basically a hard drive, tying gravity itself to the science of storing information.