One of the things the SIGACT committee would like to have is a list of "research directions" for TCS in the next decade or two, to be used in discussions with funding
agencies and congressional aides. Unlike a similar list from 2000 this one will be kept brief. It will have a few compelling items that will be comprehensible to nonspecialists and which show that funding TCS is in the national interest.
Let's all put some thought into this. We should not be afraid to take on big challenges. Obviously, a brief list will not cover all of TCS but it is hoped that a long-term focus by funding agencies on some of the list items will benefit many or even most TCS researchers. Please list your suggestions
on this page. Where appropriate, please include hyperlinks to other sources of information.
Comments
- Add your comments here. Please sign them -- Suresh Venkat.
- Being able to manipulate shapes efficiently is a core tool in doing the kinds of large scale structural biology that protein biologists have long dreamed about. Fundamentally, if I can classify the shape of a protein by comparison with others, I have learnt a lot about its function. One goal of computational geometry should be to continue explorations in shape modelling and manipulation, with particular emphasis on the kinds of tools needed to compare and process large protein structures. -- Suresh Venkat (more here)
- Computation models for Ubiquitous Computing. (Although the latter term seems dated and already has been given a lot of attention by the DoD?) There is a compelling economical case to be made that a new computing landscape will arise within a decade from now where "winner-takes-all" start-ups, say like Google, will dominate the new market. This could be linked to Random Graph theory, as by Erdos, or Distributed Computing. -- DVL
- Hi, here are some grand challenges for the foundations of cryptography. -- Boaz
- There is an excellent special issue of JACM that asked leading computer scientists to list open problems for all of CS. Some TCS problems appear there and the other CS problems provide some food for thought. Also, Jim Gray's article has an excellent introduction that gives characteristics of a good "challenge." --Sanjeev Arora
- Here are some semi-grand challenges for quantum computing theory. --Scott