A prophet will arise in CS

<i>there was a panel discussion on how to get the public excited about theoretical computer science.</i><p>Forget it. Nothing is going to make the general public excited about theoretical computer science. The general public wouldn't be excited about theoretical computer science even if they <i>did</i> understand it.<p>For the general public, the question of theoretical computer science is as interesting as the question of how plumbing works. My computer, they would say, is like my toilet -- it does what it's supposed to do most of the time, and when it breaks down I pay money to get some random jerk in to fix it. I suppose there's some quite interesting details involved in how rainwater that falls into the mountains manages to find its way through a complicated series of pipes to come into my toilet whenever I press this button, but there are far more interesting things to think about, so let's leave those details to the experts.<p>If a prophet of plumbing <i>did</i> show up to explain all the presumably-fascinating-to-someone details of how the city's water supply works then it would probably hold my interest for the duration of a half-hour documentary, but then I'd get on with my life with only a marginally-increased respect for the plumbers who make it happen.<p>I'm sure that waiting for messiahs to show up is a pretty normal sort of human activity, but I'd hate to encourage it.

Alan Turing has enough of a tragic hero charisma to serve as one; it's ridiculous his name isn't even mentioned in the post. It's another question whether popularization is a good thing in the first place. According to one sentiment, medicine is perceived as being "too popular" (no doubt at least in part thanks to the popular medical dramas you see on TV), filled with people who are in it exclusively for money rather than for intellectual challenge or desire to help people. As a result, many bright people who would have made great doctors do not go into it.

There's a fundamental difference between physics and CS in that there aren't as many sci-fi aspects to CS theory. Think about what is popular in physics: time travel, parallel universes, teleportation, beginning/end of the universe/time, aliens.<p>What are the sci-fi things in CS? Really fast factoring and fast routing for a vacuum cleaner sales guy.<p>The one potential element is AI. But CS has largely abandoned what the public views as AI. And even when there's a public show of AI, think Watson, many in CS come and say, "that's not really AI". IMO, AI is where the public can catch on to CS. But AI isn't what's generally referred to as theoretical CS -- you won't see AI papers at FOCS/STOC.

What about Ray Kurzweil? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil</a>

Why wouldn't RMS be considered here? His "right to read" [1] is certainly looking prophetic of late.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html</a>

Dijkstra kind of tried to be a prophet in this sense, though I guess he wasn't writing for a general audience.

A least, the Eschatology's unusual :<p>« Repent, repent, miserable sinners ! Soon, I tell you, those machines you count on will turn against you ! Soon, yes, in 27 years ! »

Hofstadter.

<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824058,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824058,00.h...</a><p>I was surprised to find this old article from Time magazine back in 1956. It concerns the solution to Post's Problem, which the article describes quite succinctly as:<p>| The problem: Does each non-recursive, recursively enumerable set have the property that every recursively enumerable set is recursive in it? Post himself thought not, but it was not until young Friedberg came along that anyone had the proof.<p>Can you imagine a mass-market magazine publishing such a thing today? Perhaps it's unnecessary, since anyone interested in computability theory probably pays attention to blogs like Scott Aaronson's.<p>There's a quote from from Gödel later in the article that may also speak to the problem of popularization:<p>| "Unfortunately," says Czech-born Kurt Godel of the institute, "he wants to study medicine. An achievement like this at his age comes only once in a lifetime.

does this mean that i should get one of those friar tuck cloaks, a copy of PoEAA, and start preaching about martin fowler on street corners?

The thesis that nobody has every popularized any branch of science is wrong. There used to be a tradition of having seminal books like <i>The Origin of the Species</i> being aimed at being understandable to a large audience of educated people. And books in that vein still do appear, for instance <i>Guns, Germs and Steel</i> is both a popular book and a serious academic work.

"Bohr was God, and Oppenheimer was his prophet"<p>Physics has had its share of prophets. If you care to learn more about one read "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer." Superb book, winner of the Pulitzer prize.