COMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington and Mordecai Golin

Spring 2026

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 and Lecture 250-02 (Mordecai) meets MWF 10:10-11:00 a.m., both in CSL E110 (in the new CICS building). The sections will have the same homework and exams, and will use a single Moodle site.

There are ten discussion sections each Wednesday:

PART I: Logic and Number Theory

Fri 30 Jan L01  Sets and Strings (1.1, 1.2)
Mon 02 Feb L02  Propositions and Boolean Operations (1.4)
Wed 04 Feb D01  What is a Proof? (1.3)  
Wed 04 Feb L03  Set Operations and Truth Tables (1.5, 1.6) (END OF ADD/DROP) 
Fri 06 Feb L04  Rules for Propositional Proofs (1.7) 
Mon 09 Feb L05  Propositional Proof Strategies (1.8)
Wed 11 Feb D02  A Murder Mystery (1.9)  
Wed 11 Feb L06  Predicates and Relations (1.10, 2.1)
Fri 13 Feb L07  Quantifiers and Languages (2.3, 2.5) 
Mon 16 Feb ---  NO CLASS (Presidents' Day Holiday)
Wed 18 Feb D03  Translating Quantifiers (2.4)  
Wed 18 Feb L08  Proofs With Quantifiers (2.6)
Thu 19 Feb L09  (MONDAY) Relations and Functions (2.8)
Fri 20 Feb L10  Equivalence Relations (2.10)
Fri 20 Feb H01  Homework #1 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Mon 23 Feb L11  Partial Orders (2.11)
Wed 25 Feb D04  Practicing Proofs (2.7)
Wed 25 Feb L12  Divisibility and Primes (3.1)
Fri 27 Feb L13  Modular Arithmetic (3.3) 
Mon 02 Mar L14  The Chinese Remainder Theorem (3.5)
Wed 04 Mar D05  Infinitely Many Primes (3.4)  
Wed 04 Mar L15  The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (3.6)
Fri 06 Mar H02  Homework #2 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 09 Mar X01  FIRST MIDTERM on Lectures 1-15, in ISB 135
and ILC N131

PART II: Induction, Trees, and Searching

Fri 06 Mar L16  Recursive Definition (4.1) 
Mon 09 Mar L17  Proof by Induction for Naturals (4.3)
Wed 11 Mar ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam)  
Wed 11 Mar L18  Variations on Induction for Naturals (4.4) 
Fri 13 Mar L19  Proving Basic Facts on Naturals and Strings (4.6, 4.7) 

SPRING BREAK

Mon 23 Mar L20  Induction for Problem Solving (4.11)
Wed 25 Mar D06  Practicing Induction Proofs (not in book)     
Wed 25 Mar L21  Graphs, Paths, and Trees (4.9, 9.1)
Fri 27 Mar L22  Recursion on Trees (9.3)
Fri 27 Mar H03  Homework #3 due at 11:59 p.m.    
Mon 30 Mar L23  Misconceptions about Induction (not in book)
Wed 01 Apr D07  More Induction Practice (not in book)  
Wed 01 Apr L24  General, Breadth-First, and Depth-First Search (9.4, 9.5)
Thu 02 Apr ---  Last Day to Drop With W or Elect Pass/Fail  
Fri 03 Apr L25  BFS, DFS, and UCS on Graphs (9.6, 9.8)
Mon 06 Apr L26  Uniform-Cost and A* Search (9.8, 9.9)
Wed 08 Apr D08  Boolean Expression Trees (9.2)  
Wed 08 Apr L27  Games and Adversary Search (9.10)
Fri 10 Apr H04  Homework #4 due at 11:59 p.m.   
Mon 13 Apr X02  SECOND MIDTERM (rooms TBA) on Lectures 16-27

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

Fri 10 Apr L28  Regular Expressions and Their Languages (5.1, 5.2) 
Wed 15 Apr ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam)  
Mon 13 Apr L29  Proving Regular Language Identities (5.4)  
Wed 15 Apr L30  Proving Properties of the Regular Languages (5.5)
Fri 17 Apr L31  What DFA's Can and Can't Do (14.1, 14.2) 
Mon 20 Apr ---  NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)  
Wed 22 Apr D09  Designing Regular Expressions (5.3)
Wed 22 Apr L32  The Myhill-Nerode Theorem (14.3)
Fri 24 Apr L33  NFA's and the Subset Construction (14.5, 14.6) (MONDAY) 
Fri 24 Apr H05  Homework #5 due at 11:59 p.m.  
Mon 27 Apr L34  Killing Lambda-moves: Lambda-NFA's to NFA's (14.7)
Wed 29 Apr D10  State Minimization (14.2, adapted)
Wed 29 Apr L35  Constructing NFA's from Regular Expressions (14.8)
Fri 01 May L36  State Elimination: NFA's to Regular Expressions (14.10)
Mon 04 May L37  Two-Way Automata and Turing Machines (15.1, 15.6)
Wed 06 May D11  Practicing Some Kleene Constructions (14.9, adapted)   
Wed 06 May L38  Turing Machine Semantics (15.8)
Fri 08 May L39  The Halting Problem and Unsolvability (15.10)
Fri 08 May H06  Homework #6 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 9 May 11:59 p.m.)

Final Exam (cumulative), date and location TBA


Last modified 11 February 2026