Editor's Introduction This fourteenth piece is inspired by a question left over from the Ubiquity Symposium entitled What is Computation? Peter J. Denning Editor

Computing saw the light as a branch of mathematics in the '40s, and progressively revealed ever new aspects [gol97]. Nowadays even laymen have become aware of the broad assortment of functions achieved by systems, and the prismatic nature of computing challenges thinkers who explore the various topics that substantiate computer science [mul98].