COMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington and Mordecai Golin

Fall 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 Goessmann 20 ELAB. Lecture 250-02 (Mordecai) meets MWF 10:10-11:00 a.m., also in Goessmann 20. The sections will have the same homework and exams, and will use a single Moodle site.

There are nine discussion sections each Wednesday:

PART I: Logic and Number Theory

Wed 04 Sep L01  Sets and Strings (1.1, 1.2)
Wed 04 Sep ---  NO DISCUSSION (first day of class)
Fri 06 Sep L02  Propositions and Boolean Operations (1.4)
Mon 09 Sep L03  Set Operations and Truth Tables (1.5, 1.6) (END OF ADD/DROP) 
Wed 11 Sep L04  Rules for Propositional Proofs (1.7) 
Wed 11 Sep D01  What is a Proof? (1.3)
Fri 13 Sep L05  Propositional Proof Strategies (1.8)
Mon 16 Sep L06  Predicates and Relations (1.10, 2.1)
Wed 18 Sep L07  Quantifiers and Languages (2.3, 2.5) 
Wed 18 Sep D02  A Murder Mystery (1.9)
Fri 20 Sep L08  Proofs With Quantifiers (2.6)
Fri 20 Sep H01  Homework #1 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 23 Sep L09  Relations and Functions (2.8) 
Wed 25 Sep L10  Equivalence Relations (2.10)
Wed 25 Sep D03  Practicing Proofs (2.7)
Fri 27 Sep L11  Partial Orders (2.11)
Mon 30 Sep L12  Divisibility and Primes (3.1)
Wed 02 Oct L13  Modular Arithmetic (3.3) 
Wed 02 Oct D04  Infinitely Many Primes (3.4)
Fri 04 Oct L14  The Chinese Remainder Theorem (3.5)
Fri 04 Oct H02  Homework #2 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 07 Oct L15  The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (3.6)
Thu 10 Oct X01  FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 p.m., rooms ILC N151 and S131) on Lectures 1-15

PART II: Induction, Trees, and Searching

Wed 09 Oct L16  Recursive Definition (4.1) 
Wed 09 Oct ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam) 
Fri 11 Oct L17  Proof by Induction for Naturals (4.3)
Mon 14 Oct ---  NO CLASS (Indigenous People's Day Holiday)  
Tue 15 Oct L18  Variations on Induction for Naturals (4.4) (MONDAY)
Wed 16 Oct L19  Proving Basic Facts on Naturals and Strings (4.6, 4.7) 
Wed 16 Oct D05  Practicing Induction Proofs (not in book)
Fri 18 Oct L20  Induction for Problem Solving (4.11)
Fri 18 Oct H03  Homework #3 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Mon 21 Oct L21  Graphs, Paths, and Trees (4.9, 9.1)
Wed 23 Oct L22  Recursion on Trees (9.3)
Wed 23 Oct D06  More Induction Practice (not in book)
Fri 25 Oct L23  Misconceptions about Induction (not in book)
Mon 28 Oct L24  General, Breadth-First, and Depth-First Search (9.4, 9.5)
Tue 29 Oct ---  Last Day to Drop With W or Elect Pass/Fail  
Wed 30 Oct L25  BFS and DFS on Graphs (9.6)
Wed 30 Oct D07  Boolean Expression Trees (9.2)
Fri 01 Nov L26  Uniform-Cost and A* Search (9.8, 9.9)
Fri 01 Nov H04  Homework #4 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Mon 04 Nov L27  Games and Adversary Search (9.10)
Thu 07 Nov X02  SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 p.m., rooms TBA) on Lectures 16-27

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

Wed 06 Nov L28  Regular Expressions and Their Languages (5.1, 5.2) 
Wed 06 Nov ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam)  
Fri 08 Nov L29  Proving Regular Language Identities (5.4)  
Mon 11 Nov ---  NO CLASS (Veterans' Day Holiday)
Wed 13 Nov L30  Proving Properties of the Regular Languages (5.5)
Wed 13 Nov D08  Designing Regular Expressions (5.3)  
Fri 15 Nov L31  What DFA's Can and Can't Do (14.1, 14.2)
Mon 18 Nov L32  The Myhill-Nerode Theorem (14.3)
Wed 20 Nov L33  NFA's and the Subset Construction (14.5, 14.6)
Wed 20 Nov D09  State Minimization (14.3, adapted)  
Fri 22 Nov L34  Killing Lambda-moves: Lambda-NFA's to NFA's (14.7)
Fri 22 Nov H05  Homework #5 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 25 Nov L35  Constructing NFA's from Regular Expressions (14.8)

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Mon 02 Dec L36  State Elimination: NFA's to Regular Expressions (14.10)
Wed 04 Dec L37  Two-Way Automata and Turing Machines (15.1, 15.6)
Wed 04 Dec D10  Practicing Some Kleene Constructions (14.9, adapted)    
Fri 06 Dec L38  Turing Machine Semantics (15.8)
Mon 09 Dec L39  The Halting Problem and Unsolvability (15.10)
Tue 10 Dec H06  Homework #6 due at 11:59 p.m.

Final Exam (cumulative), 12 December 2024, Totman Gym, 6:00-8:00 p.m.


Last modified 17 October 2024