Reading assignments are from Sipser, An Introduction to the Theory of Computation, second (or third) edition, available at the Textbook Annex.
Class meetings are MWF 11:15-12:05 in Goessman 51. There are two evening midterm exams -- the regular classes those days are cancelled. We may add classes these days to compensate for weather cancellations.
Adjustments in green made on 5 Feb 2014.
PART I: Regular and Context-Free Languages
Wed 22 Jan L01 Course Overview (0.1)
Fri 24 Jan L02 Basic Definitions (0.2)
Mon 27 Jan L03 Review of Proof Techniques (0.3,0.4)
Wed 29 Jan L04 Deterministic Finite Automata (1.1)
Fri 31 Jan L05 Nondeterministic Finite Automata (1.2)
Mon 03 Feb L06 Regular Expressions, Proof of Kleene's Theorem (1.3) (END OF ADD/DROP)
Wed 05 Feb L07 NO CLASS (snow)
Fri 07 Feb L08 Non-Regular Languages, Myhill-Nerode Theorem (1.4 plus)
Mon 10 Feb L09 Catchup on Chapter 1, Context-Free Languages and Grammars (2.1)
Wed 12 Feb L10 Grammars and PDA's (2.1, 2.2)
Fri 14 Feb L11 Equivalence of CFL's and PDA's (2.2)
Mon 17 Feb --- NO CLASS (President's Day Holiday)
Tue 18 Feb L12 (MONDAY SCHEDULE) Non-Context-Free Languages (2.3)
Wed 19 Feb --- Properties of the Context-Free Languages (2.3)
Wed 19 Feb X01 FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 pm, LGRT 123) on Lectures 1-12
PART II: Turing Machines and Computability
Fri 21 Feb L13 Turing Machines, with Examples (3.1)
Mon 24 Feb L14 Variants of Turing Machines (3.2)
Wed 26 Feb L15 Representing Algorithms as Turing Machines (3.3)
Fri 28 Feb L16 Decidable Languages (4.1)
Mon 03 Mar L17 The Halting Problem (4.2)
Wed 05 Mar L18 Proving Languages to be Undecidable (4.2)
Thu 06 Mar --- Last Day to Drop With W (undergraduates)
Fri 07 Mar L19 Undecidable Problems in Formal Language Theory (5.1)
Mon 10 Mar L20 Post's Correspondence Problem (5.2)
Wed 12 Mar L21 Mapping Reducibility and More Undecidable Problems (5.3)
Fri 14 Mar L22 The Recursion Theorem (6.1)
SPRING BREAK
Mon 24 Mar L23 Review of Chapters 4 and 5
Wed 26 Mar L24 A Definition of Information (6.4)
Thu 27 Mar X02 SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 pm, ELAB 303) on Lectures 13-24
PART III: Complexity Theory
Fri 28 Mar --- NO CLASS (Makeup for second midterm)
Mon 31 Mar L25 Time Complexity (7.1)
Wed 02 Apr L26 The Class P (7.2)
Fri 04 Apr L27 The Class NP (7.3)
Mon 07 Apr L28 NP Completeness (7.4)
Wed 09 Apr L29 The Cook-Levin Theorem (7.4)
Fri 11 Apr L30 Some NP-Complete Problems (7.5)
Mon 14 Apr L31 Space Complexity Definitions (8.1)
Wed 16 Apr L32 The Class PSPACE and Savitch's Theorem (8.1,8.2,8.3)
Fri 18 Apr L33 Logarithmic Space (8.4)
Mon 21 Apr --- NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)
Wed 23 Apr L34 Reachability, L, NL, NL-Completeness (8.4) (MONDAY SCHEDULE)
Fri 25 Apr L35 Circuit Complexity (9.3)
Mon 28 Apr L36 The NC and AC Classes (9.3,10.5)
Wed 30 Apr L37 Course Review and Evaluations
Thu 09 May FX Final Exam (cumulative) Fri 2 May, 10:30-12:30, room 142 CMPSCI building
Last modified 27 February 2014