How do Computer Scientists use algebra on a daily basis?

mamionamission: How do Computer Scientists use algebra on a daily basis?
Why is algebra so important to computer scientists? I have been researching this profession and I see that a lot of infasis is placed on algebra, but how does a computer scientist use it on a daily basis that makes it so important for this profession?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Freak
varibles represents alot of the computer programs and they r needed to make a program. by example, the program in the mouse, like x time to left=x times to left on screen arrow, soemthing liek tht

Answer by Joyce
I’m not sure why Algebra is important, but the reasoning that your mind does in computer programming is similiar to mathematical reasoning. It would seem that the reasoning in geometry: if this is true and this is true, then this would be true – would be helpful. Also, some B.A. degrees in computer science require calculus, which I know nothing about. By the way, my son has an associate degree in computers (Information Technology). He just had the basic math. With help he was able to learn programming.

Answer by TheMathemagician
Computer science makes EXTREMELY heavy use of variables.

If you think about it, this makes sense: a computer program that does the same thing every time it is run is not terribly useful. A useful program is one which when you give it input (say, by using the mouse and typing something), its output changes based on what you do.

You can think of the input (where the mouse is, what you type, what you click) as variables. (Although I am speaking now in a conceptual way, these sorts of things are actually represented as variables in a very literal sense in most programming languages.)

So, in a program, you may have two variables x and y which are the coordinates of where the mouse is, and you must know some algebra in order to make sense of these coordinates. (For example, given x and y, how can you tell what window the mouse is pointing at? How can you tell if it’s on the taskbar?) It is very important to be able to reason abstractly with x and y using algebra.

There are thousands of other examples, as well. Really, any program that does not do the exact same thing every time you run it depends on variables, and therefore it requires some understanding of algebra to write such a program.