COMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington and Mordecai Golin

Spring 2024

The two lectures each day will be very similar and use very similar lecture slides. Lecture 250-01 (Dave) meets MWF 1:25-2:15 p.m. in Thompson 102. Lecture 250-02 (Mordecai) meets MWF 10:10-11:00 a.m. in Morrill (II) 131. The sections will have the same homework and exams, and will use a single Moodle site.

There are nine discussion sections each Friday:


PART I: Logic and Number Theory

Fri 02 Feb L01  Sets and Strings (1.1, 1.2)
Fri 02 Feb ---  NO DISCUSSION (first day of class)
Mon 05 Feb L02  Propositions and Boolean Operations (1.4)
Wed 07 Feb L03  Set Operations and Truth Tables (1.5, 1.6) (END OF ADD/DROP) 
Fri 09 Feb L04  Rules for Propositional Proofs (1.7) 
Fri 09 Feb D01  What is a Proof? (1.3)
Mon 12 Feb L05  Propositional Proof Strategies (1.8)
Wed 14 Feb L06  Predicates and Relations (1.10, 2.1)
Fri 16 Feb L07  Quantifiers and Languages (2.3, 2.5) 
Fri 16 Feb D02  A Murder Mystery (1.9)
Mon 19 Feb ---  NO CLASS (Presidents' Day Holiday)  
Wed 21 Feb L08  Proofs With Quantifiers (2.6)
Thu 22 Feb L09  Relations and Functions (2.8) (MONDAY SCHEDULE)
Fri 23 Feb L10  Equivalence Relations (2.10)
Fri 23 Feb D03  Practicing Proofs (2.7)
Fri 23 Feb H01  Homework #1 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 26 Feb L11  Partial Orders (2.11)
Web 28 Feb L12  Divisibility and Primes (3.1)
Fri 01 Mar L13  Modular Arithmetic (3.3) 
Fri 01 Mar D04  Infinitely Many Primes (3.4)
Mon 04 Mar L14  The Chinese Remainder Theorem (3.5)
Wed 06 Mar L15  The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (3.6)
Fri 08 Mar H02  Homework #2 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Wed 13 Mar X01  FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 p.m., ISB 135 and ILC N151) on Lectures 1-15

PART II: Induction, Trees, and Searching

Fri 08 Mar L16  Recursive Definition (4.1) (MONDAY)
Fri 08 Mar ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam) 
Mon 11 Mar L17  Proof by Induction for Naturals (4.3)
Wed 13 Mar L18  Variations on Induction for Naturals (4.4)
Fri 15 Mar L19  Proving the Basic Facts of Arithmetic (4.6) 
Fri 15 Mar D05  Practicing Induction Proofs (not in book)

SPRING BREAK

Mon 25 Mar L20  Recursive Definition for Strings (4.7)
Wed 27 Mar L21  Induction for Problem Solving (4.11)
Fri 29 Mar L22  Graphs, Paths, and Trees (4.9, 9.1)
Fri 29 Mar D06  More Induction Practice (not in book)
Fri 29 Mar H03  Homework #3 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 01 Apr L23  Recursion on Trees (9.3)
Wed 03 Apr L24  General, Breadth-First, and Depth-First Search (9.4, 9.5)
Thu 04 Apr ---  Last Day to Drop With W or Elect Pass/Fail  
Fri 05 Apr L25  BFS and DFS on Graphs (9.6)
Fri 05 Apr D07  Boolean Expression Trees (9.2)
Mon 08 Apr L26  Uniform-Cost and A* Search (9.8, 9.9)
Wed 10 Apr L27  Games and Adversary Search (9.10)
Fri 12 Apr H04  Homework #4 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Wed 17 Apr X02  SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 p.m., Bartlett 65 and Thompson 104) on Lectures 16-27

PART III: Regular Expressions, Finite-State Machines, and Computability

Fri 12 Apr ---  NO DISCUSSION (Monday holiday)  
Fri 12 Apr L28  Regular Expressions and Their Languages (5.1, 5.2) (MONDAY)
Mon 15 Apr ---  NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)
Wed 17 Apr L29  Proving Regular Language Identities (5.4)  
Fri 19 Apr L30  Proving Properties of the Regular Languages (5.5)
Fri 19 Apr D08  Designing Regular Expressions (5.3)  
Mon 22 Apr L31  What DFA's Can and Can't Do (14.1, 14.2)
Wed 24 Apr L32  The Myhill-Nerode Theorem (14.3)
Fri 26 Apr L33  NFA's and the Subset Construction (14.5, 14.6)
Fri 26 Apr ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam)
Fri 26 Apr H05  Homework #5 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 29 Apr L34  Killing λ-moves: λ-NFA's to NFA's (14.7)
Wed 01 May L35  Constructing NFA's from Regular Expressions (14.8)
Fri 03 May L36  State Elimination: NFA's to Regular Expressions (14.10)
Fri 03 May D09  State Minimization (14.3, adapted)  
Mon 06 May L37  Two-Way Automata and Turing Machines (15.1, 15.6)
Wed 08 May L38  Turing Machine Semantics (15.8)
Fri 10 May L39  The Halting Problem and Unsolvability (15.10)
Fri 10 May D10  Practicing Some Kleene Constructions (14.9, adapted)    
Fri 10 May H06  Homework #6 due at 11:59 p.m.

Final Exam (cumulative), Mon 13 May, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Boyden Gym




Last modified 8 April 2024