sci-comp-definition.qmd

## What is Scientific Computing?

In the most fundamental sense, **scientific computing refers to the process of organizing, managing, and analyzing scientific data using computers.** This process takes place at the interface between several distinct disciplines:

- *Informatics* provides both a planning framework and operational rules for acquiring, handling, interpreting, and storing the underlying information in a useful and efficient manner
- *Computer science* and the technologies it produces provide the overarching computational environment, including the core processing “engine” and a means to control it
- Relevant branches of *mathematics*, *statistics*, and *probability* arm us with numerical models, algorithms, error representations, and other constructs for describing and solving problems quantitatively
- Last but not least, the target science itself (e.g., *ecology*) provides an overall motivation, research paradigm, and conceptual model to guide the analysis

With these many links to other fields, modern scientific computing is now viewed as a field of study unto itself, constantly evolving in step with advances in the disciplines on which it is based.

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<img src="images/lter-photos/regal-fritillary.jpg" width="100%"/>
<figcaption>Regal Fritillary on Milkweed, Konza Prairie Biological Station - Photographer: Jill Haukos</figcaption>
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