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 LGRC A301. There are two evening midterm exams -- the regular classes those days are cancelled. We may add classes these days to compensate for weather cancellations.
PART I: Regular and Context-Free Languages
Wed 21 Jan L01 Course Overview (0.1)
Fri 23 Jan L02 Basic Definitions (0.2)
Mon 26 Jan L03 Review of Proof Techniques (0.3, 0.4)
Wed 28 Jan L04 Deterministic Finite Automata (1.1)
Fri 30 Jan L05 Nondeterministic Finite Automata (1.2)
Mon 02 Feb --- NO CLASS (SNOW) (END OF ADD/DROP)
Wed 04 Feb L06 Finish Kleene Proof, Non-Regular Languages (1.3, 1.4)
Fri 06 Feb L07 Myhill-Nerode Theorem (1.4 plus)
Mon 09 Feb --- NO CLASS (SNOW)
Wed 11 Feb L08 Catchup on Chapter 1, CFL's and Grammars (2.1)
Fri 13 Feb L10 Grammars and PDA's (2.1, 2.2)
Mon 16 Feb --- NO CLASS (President's Day Holiday)
Tue 17 Feb L11 (MONDAY SCHEDULE) Equivalence of CFL's and PDA's (2.2)
Wed 18 Feb L12 Non-CFL's, Properties of Context-Free Languages (2.3)
Wed 18 Feb X01 FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 pm, LGRT 121) on Lectures 1-11
PART II: Turing Machines and Computability
Fri 20 Feb L13 Turing Machines, with Examples (3.1)
Mon 23 Feb L14 Variants of Turing Machines (3.2)
Wed 25 Feb L15 Representing Algorithms as Turing Machines (3.3)
Fri 27 Feb L16 Decidable Languages (4.1)
Mon 02 Mar L17 The Halting Problem (4.2)
Wed 04 Mar L18 Proving Languages to be Undecidable (4.2)
Thu 05 Mar --- Last Day to Drop With W (undergraduates)
Fri 06 Mar L19 Undecidable Problems in Formal Language Theory (5.1)
Mon 09 Mar L20 Post's Correspondence Problem (5.2)
Wed 11 Mar L21 Mapping Reducibility and More Undecidable Problems (5.3)
Fri 13 Mar L22 The Recursion Theorem (6.1)
SPRING BREAK
Mon 23 Mar L23 Review of Chapters 4 and 5
Wed 25 Mar L24 A Definition of Information (6.4)
Thu 26 Mar X02 SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 pm, LGRT 121) on Lectures 13-24
PART III: Complexity Theory
Fri 27 Mar --- NO CLASS (Makeup for second midterm)
Mon 30 Mar L25 Time Complexity (7.1)
Wed 01 Apr L26 The Class P (7.2)
Fri 03 Apr L27 The Class NP (7.3)
Mon 06 Apr L28 NP Completeness (7.4)
Wed 08 Apr L29 The Cook-Levin Theorem (7.4)
Fri 10 Apr L30 Some NP-Complete Problems (7.5)
Mon 13 Apr L31 Space Complexity Definitions (8.1)
Wed 15 Apr L32 The Class PSPACE and Savitch's Theorem (8.1, 8.2, 8.3)
Fri 17 Apr L33 Logarithmic Space (8.4)
Mon 20 Apr --- NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)
Wed 22 Apr L34 Reachability, L, NL, NL-Completeness (8.4) (MONDAY SCHEDULE)
Fri 24 Apr L35 Circuit Complexity (9.3)
Mon 27 Apr L36 The NC and AC Classes (9.3, 10.5)
Wed 29 Apr L37 Course Review and Evaluations
Thu 30 Apr L38 (MONDAY SCHEDULE) Further Review for Final Exam
Fri 01 May FX Final Exam (cumulative) 10:30-12:30, LGRC A301
Last modified 9 March 2015