Computer science wins Chemistry Nobel prize

A big win for computational science, and for the argument that computer science is important, even for people who aren’t going to be professional software developers.

When he conceived his prestigious prizes in 1895, Alfred Nobel never imagined the need to honor an unknown field called computer science.

But the next best thing happened on Wednesday: Computing achieved a historic milestone when the Nobel Prize for chemistry went to a trio of researchers — one of them a Stanford University professor — for their groundbreaking work using computers to model the complex chemistry that sustains life.

“Computers in biology have not been sufficiently appreciated. Now they have been,” said ebullient winner Michael Levitt of Stanford’s School of Medicine, the university’s second Nobel winner this week.

via Stanford’s Nobel chemistry prize honors computer science – San Jose Mercury News.