>>11951192What are the differences between Computer Science and Computational Science?
Caveat:I'll leave out the hardware part in the following discussion. Hardware is mostly a subject in computer engineering, which may or may not be a part of computer science (it depends on the school).
Computer science is the study of algorithms, with a goal to develop general purpose algorithmic tools and paradigms that help solve any computational problem. It can broadly be divided into:
-- Theory (algorithms, complexity, theory of computation etc.)
-- Systems (OS, computer networks, compilers etc.)
-- Artificial Intelligence (learning, planning, vision, NLP etc.)
Computational science is essentially a simulation based treatment of natural and social sciences. Here computation is only a tool, a stepping stone, to understand the behavior of some systems. It can be considered a modern rehash of mathematics applied to science, with the aid of computers. Again, it can be roughly broken down into:
-- Foundations of numerical methods (numerical linear algebra, probability theory etc.)
-- Simulation of continuous systems (numerical solution of ODEs and PDEs)
-- Simulation of stochastic systems (various versions of monte carlo method)
