CMPSCI 401: Spring 2009

Syllabus and Course Schedule

Prof. David Mix Barrington

Reading assignments are from Sipser, An Introduction to the Theory of Computation, second edition, available at the Textbook Annex.

Class meetings are MWF 9:05-9:55 in LGRT (the tower) room 121. There are two evening midterms exams, on Mondays -- the regular classes those days are cancelled.

PART I:   Automata and Formal Languages

Mon 26 Jan L01  Course Overview (0.1)
Wed 28 Jan L02  Basic Definitions (0.2) 
Fri 30 Jan L03  Review of Proof Techniques (0.3,0.4)
Mon 02 Feb L04  Deterministic Finite Automata (1.1)
Wed 04 Feb L05  Nondeterministic Finite Automata (1.2)
Fri 06 Feb L06  Regular Expressions and Kleene's Theorem (1.3)
Mon 09 Feb L07  Proof of Kleene's Theorem (1.3)
Wed 11 Feb L08  Non-Regular Languages (1.4)
Fri 13 Feb L09  The Myhill-Nerode Theorem (1.4 plus)
Mon 16 Feb ---  NO CLASS (Presidents' Day)
Wed 18 Feb L10  Context-Free Languages and Grammars (2.1)
Fri 20 Feb L11  Pushdown Automata (2.2)
Mon 23 Feb L12  Equivalence of CFL's and PDA's (2.2)
Wed 25 Feb L13  Non-Context-Free Languages (2.3)
Fri 27 Feb L14  Properties of the Context-Free Languages (2.3)
Mon 02 Mar X01  FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 pm) on Lectures 1-14 (no lecture)
  
PART II: Turing Machines and Computability

Wed 04 Mar L15  Turing Machines (3.1)
Fri 06 Feb L16  Turing Machine Examples (3.1)  
Mon 00 Mar L17  Variants of Turing Machines (3.2)
Wed 11 Mar L18  More Variants of Turing Machines (3.2)
Fri 13 Mar L19  Representing Algorithms as Turing Machines (3.3)

SPRING BREAK

Mon 23 Mar L20  Decidable Languages (4.1)
Wed 25 Mar L21  The Halting Problem (4.2)
Fri 27 Mar L22  Proving Languages to be Undecidable (4.2)
Mon 30 Mar L23  Undecidable Problems in Formal Language Theory (5.1) 
Wed 01 Apr L24  Post's Correspondence Problem (5.2) 
Fri 03 Apr L25  Mapping Reducibility (5.3)
Mon 06 Apr L26  More Undecidable Problems (5.3)
Wed 08 Apr L27  The Recursion Theorem (6.1)
Fri 10 Apr L28  A Definition of Information (6.4)
Mon 13 Apr X02  SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 pm) on Lectures 15-28 (no lecture)

PART III: Complexity Theory

Wed 15 Apr L29  Time Complexity (7.1)
Fri 17 Apr L30  The Class P (7.2)  
Mon 20 Apr ---  NO CLASS (Patriots' Day)
Tue 21 Apr L31  The Class NP (7.3)
Wed 22 Apr L32  NP Completeness (7.4)
Fri 24 Apr L33  The Cook-Levin Theorem (7.4)
Mon 27 Apr L34  Some NP-Complete Problems (7.5)
Wed 29 Apr L35  Space Complexity Definitions (8.1)
Fri 01 May L36  The Class PSPACE and Savitch's Theorem (8.1,8.2,8.3)
Mon 04 May L37  Logarithmic Space (8.4)
Wed 06 May L38  Reachability, L, NL, NL-Completeness (8.4)
Fri 08 May L39  Circuit Complexity (9.3)
Mon 11 May L40  The NC and AC Classes (9.3,10.5)

Final Exam Monday 18 May 2009, 4-6 p.m., LGRT 321.

Last modified 18 May 2009