Organizing informatics: statics, kinematics, and dynamics

The name computer science implies a field of study limited to examining the properties of certain machines. However, computer science is a broader field than its name suggests, consisting of elements of mathematics, engineering, and science. The name of the field is so limiting compared to its broad nature that Dijkstra compared it to using the name "telescope science" for astronomy.

Recently, the term informatics has been used in the U.S. to name both computer science and a wide range of inter- and trans-disciplinary fields, some of which have informatics in their names, like bioinformatics and health informatics, and others of which do not, such as information security, library science, and human computer interaction. Some of these fields have been housed in departments or schools of computer science, while others have been housed elsewhere in the university until the rise of colleges of informatics or information studies.

The breadth of meanings for informatics leads us to examine how to identify and organize the various fields of informatics. In this entry, I look at classical mechanics as a source of inspiration. Classical mechanics consists of three major branches: statics, kinematics, and dynamics. Statics is the study of systems in static equilibrium, where the positions of objects do not vary with time. It is of critical importance to architects and structural engineers. Kinematics describes systems in motion without considering the forces that lead to that motion. This branch focuses on the concepts of position, distance, and velocity. Dynamics is the study of the causes of motion and changes in motion. Newton's laws of motions describe the dynamics of classical mechanics.

The study of information can be divided into three analagous branches of information statics, information kinematics, and information dynamics, dealing respectively with information in storage, information in communication, and information in processing. Information statics includes fields such as information architecture, storage management, and the solid state physics of magnetic media, while information kinematics includes subjects such as social informatics, web science, and data communication. Information dynamics focuses on computation, including software engineering, theory of computation, and the computer engineering of microprocessors. In future blog posts, I'll look at each of these fields in more detail.