Reading assignments are from Sipser, An Introduction to the Theory of Computation, second (or third) edition, available through the university's Amazon entity and elsewhere.
Class meetings are MWF 11:15-12:05 in Marston 211. 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 20 Jan L01 Course Overview (0.1)
Fri 22 Jan L02 Basic Definitions (0.2)
Mon 25 Jan L03 Review of Proof Techniques (0.3, 0.4)
Wed 27 Jan L04 Deterministic Finite Automata (1.1)
Fri 29 Jan L05 Nondeterministic Finite Automata (1.2)
Mon 01 Feb L06 (END OF ADD/DROP) Kleene's Theorem (1.3)
Wed 03 Feb L07 Non-Regular Languages (1.4)
Fri 05 Feb L08 Myhill-Nerode Theorem (1.4 plus)
Mon 08 Feb L09 CFL's and Grammars (2.1)
Wed 10 Feb L10 Grammars and PDA's (2.1, 2.2)
Fri 12 Feb L11 Equivalence of CFL's and PDA's (2.2)
Mon 15 Feb --- NO CLASS (President's Day Holiday)
Tue 16 Feb L12 (MONDAY SCHEDULE) Non-CFL's, Properties of CFL's (2.3)
Wed 17 Feb --- NO CLASS (makeup for exam)
Wed 17 Feb X01 FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 pm, ILCS 140) on Lectures 1-12
PART II: Turing Machines and Computability
Fri 19 Feb L13 Turing Machines, with Examples (3.1)
Mon 22 Feb L14 Variants of Turing Machines (3.2)
Wed 24 Feb L15 Representing Algorithms as Turing Machines (3.3)
Fri 26 Feb L16 Decidable Languages (4.1)
Mon 29 Feb L17 The Halting Problem (4.2)
Wed 02 Mar L18 Proving Languages to be Undecidable (4.2)
Thu 03 Mar --- Last Day to Drop With W or elect P/F (undergraduates)
Fri 04 Mar L19 Undecidable Problems in Formal Language Theory (5.1)
Mon 07 Mar L20 Post's Correspondence Problem (5.2)
Wed 09 Mar L21 Mapping Reducibility and More Undecidable Problems (5.3)
Fri 11 Mar L22 The Recursion Theorem (6.1)
SPRING BREAK
Mon 21 Mar L23 Review of Chapters 4 and 5
Wed 23 Mar L24 A Definition of Information (6.4)
Thu 24 Mar X02 SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 pm, Morrill II 222) on Lectures 13-24
PART III: Complexity Theory
Fri 25 Mar --- NO CLASS (Makeup for second midterm)
Mon 28 Mar L25 Time Complexity (7.1)
Wed 30 Mar L26 The Class P (7.2)
Fri 01 Apr L27 The Class NP (7.3)
Mon 04 Apr L28 NP Completeness (7.4)
Wed 06 Apr L29 The Cook-Levin Theorem (7.4)
Fri 08 Apr L30 Some NP-Complete Problems (7.5)
Mon 11 Apr L31 Space Complexity Definitions (8.1)
Wed 13 Apr L32 The Class PSPACE and Savitch's Theorem (8.1, 8.2, 8.3)
Fri 15 Apr L33 Logarithmic Space (8.4)
Mon 18 Apr --- NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)
Wed 20 Apr L34 Reachability, L, NL, NL-Completeness (8.4) (MONDAY SCHEDULE)
Fri 22 Apr L35 Circuit Complexity (9.3)
Mon 25 Apr L36 The NC and AC Classes (9.3, 10.5)
Wed 27 Apr L37 Course Review and Evaluations
Thu 05 May FX Final Exam (cumulative) 10:30-12:30, Marston 211
Last modified 6 March 2016