If Einstein had his E = mc^2, I have mine.
F = Cs * I(s)
where F - our future, Cs - Computer Science, I(s) - Integral over all the important sciences we know of today and in future to come.
Computer Science is pure common sense. It isn't rocket science, in fact I would regard it as being among the more easier sciences to comprehend as it is directly in line with our common senses. The way a human mind thinks and computes information is based on which the entire field of Computer Science is designed and continues to evolve as our common senses, especially those of perception and reaction continuously evolve. Although the real application of a task such as Natural Language Processing can be seen in action today, the founding principles of research within this sub-domain of AI can be traced back to the sixties and seventies. Similar cases of other sub-domains and their very early pioneering research findings exist. My father, who although by qualification is a Mechanical Engineer, has always been fascinated by Computer Science and has always been able to better understand why certain things which were considered not fruitful earlier were quite fruitful now. Years ago, long before I could make sense of the difference, he possessed the intuition of how sheer advancements in computational capacities continue to expand the outreach of Computer Science and thus its permeation into other fascinating fields of science.
Such continual rapid progress has propelled research and thus amazing discoveries in areas where earlier there was little or no progress at all. Although exciting research continues in the basic domains of Computer Science, the focus has shifted to the marriages of Computer Science with other computationally intensive scientific research subjects. One fine example of such a marriage is Computational Genomics. Ever since Watson and Clark discovered the helical DNA structure in 1953, Genetics as a field continued to remain nascent until such sheer computational capacities attracted scientists' attention. It wasn't lack of talent or interest or opportunities. It was the lack of computational capacity which kept Geneticists at bay. Since the marriage, we have unraveled exciting secrets in the DNA structure and have been able to 'almost' successfully map the entire human genome, which I think is one of the most important achievements of modern day mankind. This achievement, according to me stands at the very pinnacle of scientific achievements along with Newton's gravity, Einstein's equation and Edison's electricity.
It is now common to get your entire DNA profiled by privatized scientific labs. You can now know your entire genetic lineage, disease risks, genetic inheritance, and what not! This is just to show how just studying computer science isn't going to be enough for the future. As students in Computer Science, it is imperative that we try to appreciate at least one cross-disciplinary domain within science where computer science and its principles are key to future advancements. This is not just because it is to happen, but also because such a good understanding would help us foresee the 'next big thing' in science. It is also our responsibility to equip ourselves well for in future, we are likely to be driving this field towards important discoveries in other sciences. The opening lines of the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' emphasize the importance of 'mathematicians' in the cold war era, when deciphering the adversary's communications was the need of the hour. I consider the current era at least, if not many more to come as the one or those in which 'Computer Scientists' become the most important scientists around. Why have a field called 'Computer' Science when 'Mathematics' was itself perceived to be a science of numbers and thus computation? It is because computation isn't just about numbers. Similarly Computer Science is evolving into a domain not just about computation but a lot more.
The world, going forward is going to have very specialized interests in various research domains. Bill Gates, speaking at Stanford University in April 2010 advised that students and researchers alike stop focusing their interests and energies towards problems which do not impact mankind and their quality of life directly. What a remarkable way to put it! and, thankfully this came from a man whose words are accepted by all around without doubt. Computer Science is already becoming the brain of all sciences. We can't be scientific humans with just brains and nothing else. Let's all now work towards acquiring our other organs as well! The brain will show us the way, all we need to do is persist with other sciences and ensure that at least at the surface level, we are ready to accept what's in store for us from our scientific future.
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