Computer science is generally thought of as the study of the theoretical aspects of the use or design of computers, and computer engineering as the study of hardware and the construction of real computing devices. This distinction is not rigorous, nor is it understood the same way by everyone. However, most people would agree that computer science is closer to mathematics and computer engineering closer to electrical engineering.

Looked at a certain way, computer science is a specialized topic in applied mathematics. Many of the topics of applied math, such as numerical analysis, are investigated almost exclusively in conjunction with computers. Other topics, such as algorithmic algebra (also called computer algebra), are devoted to mathematical analyses of computer-science problems. Still other topics, like graph theory, are studied by mathematicians as well as by computer scientists; thus it is really not sensible to...