W e can all admit some point in our lives that something to do with computers sounded very cool and exciting. I remember when my imagination came from movies which made me think that a programmer/hacker would be typing really fast at the computer and is either creating something cool, magical or bypassing systems and controlling traffic lights in a cool way. However, I never thought that one day I would wake up and ask myself what’s the next project I could start building which could have the potential to help someone else in their daily lives.
When I was young, I was really drawn to magic. I remember watching one of my favourite magicians ‘Dynamo’, always being mesmerized by the tricks he performed. However, most of the time it frustrated me that I didn’t know how he does it until one day I researched one of his tricks on youtube and decided to learn it. After countless practice, I finally decided to perform what I’ve learnt to my friends. Suddenly all my friends said ‘wow, how did you do that?’ and that’s when I thought I needed some more of that feeling. Very soon, I became addicted to the attention magic provided and ultimately this gave me confidence. Eventually, I felt that the more confidence I had the greater things I was doing and the more impact I was having.
Meeting Dynamo
As time went on, my curiosity about the way our Universe operates served as my personal compass pointing out the direction I should follow. I have long been intrigued by Physics as this subject provided answers to many of the questions I have pondered about the physical world. Keen to learn more about the Universe, I found I was fascinated by every aspect of the subject so in 2014 I applied for a week's work experience at the Science Technology Facilities Council in Oxford (STFC) to broaden my understanding of a wide range of topics. That was where my planned career path changed course, the compass needle swung round to a different direction when I learned how to program in Python at STFC . I quickly came to realise that computer science plays a vital part in the way we study all sciences and there is no area that computer science is not touched by. Shortly after I reapplied the next year to discover more, very soon I had opportunities to participate in real-life projects collaboratively with other developers using a quite new platform at the time called ‘GitHub’. Although I found the work experience very impactful, I still wanted to learn more and deeper into the field. My curiosity-driven me to learn languages like Java, Javascript, Python, PHP, the theory of computation and the key concepts of how to develop projects.
Soon at University, I came across many categories of computer science like Robotics, Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, Data administration, Game developer, Artificial Intelligence, neural networks and many more. When there are so many possibilities, it is harder to choose. This is called the ‘Overchoice’ cognitive process and it felt like finding a needle in the haystack. However, after realising how far I came to be at this position, I realised that worrying will just make it worse. Recognising that I have already chosen the course I want to specialise in and in my first year, I gained a strong foundation of the basics allowed me to feel more confident about the future.
Eventually, as I started 2nd year working on team projects and databases one category really stood out to me which I have decided to specialize in now at the end of my 2nd year. This is the field of artificial intelligence more specifically machine learning and Data Science. I started to feel that my old passion sparked again, I started to see a deep fundamental connection between magic and computer science. Principles like testing and algorithms shared a strong connection between the two. The most magic trick works in an algorithmic way without any sleight of hand involved, this can be the same when creating algorithms to execute a certain task. Secondly Testing if the magic trick truly works is essential before performing and this is the same in developing a product. I quickly started to realise that all the skills I have learnt in magic are transferable and applicable to computer science, this prevented me to become overwhelmed by the subject and carry on learning more.
The Perfect Shuffle
One specific technique which even today amazes is the perfect shuffle, this is where you magically shuffle a card to a position of your choice. Brent Morris, a person who loved magic and mathematics, has discovered that you can use perfect shuffles to move the top card to any position in the pack, using a little bit of the maths in computers: binary numbers. Suppose you want the top card (let’s call that position 0) to go to position 6. Write 6 in base 2 (binary), giving 110 (1x4+1x2+0x1). Now read the 0s and 1s from left to right: 1:1:0. Then, working through the 1s and 0s, you perform an out-shuffle for a 0 and an in-shuffle for a 1. In our case that means:
- 1: an in-shuffle
- first 1: another in-shuffle
- 0: and finally
- an out-shuffle
This is one of the many tricks that the concept and principles of how the trick works can be applied in the field of Computer Science.
As I was frustrated that I didn’t know how a magic trick was done, I felt the same with Computer Science and wanted to discover and learn about it. More importantly, whenever I performed any magic tricks the experiences of pure excitement, wonder and message I was able to deliver through magic is the same reason I decided to pursue my career in the field of Computer Science.
When my mum decided to relocate to England together with my brother, starting from nothing to having a beautiful home and building the infrastructure for me and my brother to go to school and having nice things, was for me a magical moment. I think sometimes I forget that my mum came to a foreign language, started from nothing and created something out of nothing. That’s what I call real magic. I was always inspired by my mum and this really drew me to pursue my career and achieve something truly magical.
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