Renowned computer scientist speaks at Tufts

Noted computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou discussed the relationship between computer science and economics and its impact on the Internet in a lecture this Monday.

Economics Professor Yannis Ioannides, who coordinated the lecture, summarized the lecture as a "tour of the types of conceptual tools one uses to study the Internet."

Papadimitriou, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is known for his innovative combination of computer science and social science in his study of the Internet. Papadimitriou argued that the Internet is the "first computational artifact that is mysterious," because it was not the outcome of scientific design.

Instead, it was "developed from the interaction of individuals' behavior when armed with certain machines," explained Ioannides. Therefore, Papadimitriou argued that the direct involvement of humanity in the Internet's evolution necessitates an aspect of social science in the study of the Internet.

Ioannides said that this interdisciplinary focus of the presentation was meant specifically to "draw students' attention away from the compartmentalization of knowledge and kindle their imaginations."

Papadimitriou presented various models for the arrangement of the Internet and explained how each node, or company, connects to the others. These models vary with the cost for routing the company's messages and range from a "Mussolini Internet," with prescribed routes for each message, to "anarchy," or a complete absence of coordination, he said.

Papadimitriou's work calls for the use of methods combining these principles of computer science and economics to explore the Internet, which he argues should, "like the universe and the cell, be understood by observation and falsifiable theories."

Senior computer science major Sung Ahn appreciated that the lecture allowed him to "look at a more solid picture" of the Internet and computer science in general. "It gave us a taste of the real world and opened our eyes to something we're missing in our courses," Ahn said.

Fellow senior Ben Grubin agreed. "Computer science neglects human aspects of behavior, not intentionally but because they're not quantifiable," he said. The Internet has become a "worldwide experiment" in how humans change the way machines interact, he added.

Papadimitriou's resume stretches across international boundaries to the best technical schools in the world. Educated first in his native Greece at Athens Polytechnic and then at Princeton, he went on to teach at Harvard, MIT, Athens Polytechnic, and Stanford before going to Berkeley in 1996. He has published several textbooks, as well as over 200 papers on the subject of computer science. He is included among the country's top academics as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Approximately 100 professors, graduate students, and undergraduates attended Papadimitriou's presentation in the Braker auditorium. Ioannides considers the lecture a great success. "My criteria for success is for a single student to say 'Wow! I want to study this further," he said. "And I think the lecture went superbly."