Look Who it Was Random video

The Essence of Computation | Jay McCarthy | TEDxYouth@GDRHS

1,429 views · Published 28 September 2016 · 16:22 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: TEDx Talks · 2016 · Nonprofits & Activism

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Everything big is actually a bunch of little things, but humans don't think that way because the many levels of details oftentimes have no real impact on our lives. In contrast, computers operate strictly at a base level: ones and zeros. Good computer scientists understand this is what makes good design. This idea also really applies to all aspects of life as Jay will explain.

Jay McCarthy is an associate professor at UMass Lowell and was an
assistant professor at Brigham Young University, both in Computer
Science departments. He is a member of the PLT research group and
works on the Racket programming language. He completed a PhD at Brown
University in the Computer Science Department under Shriram
Krishnamurthi as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. He did his BS at
UMass Lowell studying Mathematics, Computer Science, and a minor in
Economics. He is passionate about computer science education &
diversity, formal verification, programming language expressiveness,
and his three adorable kids. He is a Dunstable native and GDRHS alum.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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