ESP Biography

Ray Tracing is a technique for rendering realistic images with computers. The creators of films such as Shrek, Ratatouille, Up and Avatar utilized ray tracing (among other techniques) to create their splendid graphics. - Learn how this beautiful and elegant algorithm works. - See some examples of amazing computer-generated images made with ray tracers. - Get introduced to POV-Ray, a free text-based ray tracer that you can use to create ray traced images at home. - Walk through the source code to a minimal ray tracer program. This will be a highly technical class with lots of math and programming: however, it's neat math & programming. I will try my best to teach the mathematical concepts needed to understand ray tracing. But due to time constraints I'll move quickly. Knowledge of basic algebra, polynomials, trigonometry and geometry is highly recommended. Knowledge of vectors (dot and cross products) and previous programming experience will be helpful.

Give a computer the right program and enough memory and time and it can solve any problem... right? Incorrect. It turns out that computers are fundamentally limited in what they can do. Computers are provably useless at solving some simply-stated, practical problems. We'll take a look at what sorts of problems spell trouble for computers, gaining insight into a fascinating topic that is central to Computer Science. Hands-on activities will include simulating Turing Machines with M&Ms and playing with tiles.

I will give a whirlwind tour of Theoretical Computer Science focusing on the bad news: problems that can't be solved by any computer, past, present, or future. Along the way we'll learn about Turing Machines, Big-O notation, decidability, reductions, and understand the biggest open question in computer science: does P=NP? This class is based on the book "Computers LTD: What They Really Can't Do" by David Harel. This class is aimed towards 11th and 12th graders, but I'm leaving it open to bright & interested 9th/10th graders.