COMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington and Mordecai Golin

Spring 2025

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 (1) N375. 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 31 Jan L01  Sets and Strings (1.1, 1.2)
Fri 31 Jan ---  NO DISCUSSION (first day of class)
Mon 03 Feb L02  Propositions and Boolean Operations (1.4)
Wed 05 Feb L03  Set Operations and Truth Tables (1.5, 1.6) (END OF ADD/DROP) 
Fri 07 Feb L04  Rules for Propositional Proofs (1.7) 
Fri 07 Feb D01  What is a Proof? (1.3)
Mon 10 Feb L05  Propositional Proof Strategies (1.8)
Wed 12 Feb L06  Predicates and Relations (1.10, 2.1)
Fri 14 Feb L07  Quantifiers and Languages (2.3, 2.5) 
Fri 14 Feb D02  A Murder Mystery (1.9)
Mon 17 Feb ---  NO CLASS (Presidents' Day Holiday)
Wed 19 Feb L08  Proofs With Quantifiers (2.6)
Thu 20 Feb L09  (MONDAY) Relations and Functions (2.8) 
Fri 21 Feb L10  Equivalence Relations (2.10)
Fri 21 Feb D03  Practicing Proofs (2.7)
Fri 21 Feb H01  Homework #1 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Mon 24 Feb L11  Partial Orders (2.11)
Wed 26 Feb L12  Divisibility and Primes (3.1)
Fri 28 Feb L13  Modular Arithmetic (3.3) 
Fri 28 Feb D04  Infinitely Many Primes (3.4)
Mon 03 Mar L14  The Chinese Remainder Theorem (3.5)
Wed 05 Mar L15  The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (3.6)
Fri 07 Mar H02  Homework #2 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Tue 11 Mar X01  FIRST MIDTERM (rooms TBA) on Lectures 1-15

PART II: Induction, Trees, and Searching

Fri 07 Mar L16  Recursive Definition (4.1) 
Fri 07 Mar ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam) 
Mon 10 Mar L17  Proof by Induction for Naturals (4.3)
Wed 12 Mar L18  Variations on Induction for Naturals (4.4) 
Fri 14 Mar L19  Proving Basic Facts on Naturals and Strings (4.6, 4.7) 
Fri 14 Mar D05  Practicing Induction Proofs (not in book)

SPRING BREAK

Mon 24 Mar L20  Induction for Problem Solving (4.11)
Wed 26 Mar L21  Graphs, Paths, and Trees (4.9, 9.1)
Fri 28 Mar L22  Recursion on Trees (9.3)
Fri 28 Mar D06  More Induction Practice (not in book)
Fri 28 Mar H03  Homework #3 due at 11:59 p.m.    
Mon 31 Mar L23  Misconceptions about Induction (not in book)
Wed 02 Apr L24  General, Breadth-First, and Depth-First Search (9.4, 9.5)
Thu 03 Apr ---  Last Day to Drop With W or Elect Pass/Fail  
Fri 04 Apr L25  BFS and DFS on Graphs (9.6)
Fri 04 Apr D07  Boolean Expression Trees (9.2)
Mon 07 Apr L26  Uniform-Cost and A* Search (9.8, 9.9)
Wed 09 Apr L27  Games and Adversary Search (9.10)
Fri 11 Apr H04  Homework #4 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Mon 14 Apr X02  SECOND MIDTERM (rooms TBA) on Lectures 16-27

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

Fri 11 Apr L28  Regular Expressions and Their Languages (5.1, 5.2) 
Fri 11 Apr ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam)  
Mon 14 Apr L29  Proving Regular Language Identities (5.4)  
Wed 16 Apr L30  Proving Properties of the Regular Languages (5.5)
Fri 18 Apr L31  What DFA's Can and Can't Do (14.1, 14.2) (MONDAY) 
Fri 18 Apr ---  NO DISCUSSION (Monday schedule)
Mon 21 Apr ---  NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)  
Wed 23 Apr L32  The Myhill-Nerode Theorem (14.3)
Fri 25 Apr L33  NFA's and the Subset Construction (14.5, 14.6)
Fri 25 Apr D08  State Minimization (14.3, adapted)   
Fri 25 Apr H05  Homework #5 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 28 Apr L34  Killing Lambda-moves: Lambda-NFA's to NFA's (14.7)
Wed 30 Apr L35  Constructing NFA's from Regular Expressions (14.8)
Fri 02 May L36  State Elimination: NFA's to Regular Expressions (14.10)
Fri 02 May D09  Practicing Some Kleene Constructions (14.9, adapted)  
Mon 05 May L37  Two-Way Automata and Turing Machines (15.1, 15.6)
Wed 07 May L38  Turing Machine Semantics (15.8)
Fri 09 May L39  The Halting Problem and Unsolvability (15.10)
Fri 09 May D10  Practicing More Kleene Constructions (14.9, adapted)     
Fri 09 May H06  Homework #6 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 10 May 11:59 p.m.)

Final Exam (cumulative), date and location TBA


Last modified 10 February 2025