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, Context-Free and Computable Languages
Mon 23 Jan L01 Course Overview and Definitions (0.1, 0.2)
Wed 25 Jan L02 Review of Proof Techniques (0.3, 0.4)
Fri 27 Jan L03 Deterministic Finite Automata (1.1)
Mon 30 Jan L04 Nondeterministic Finite Automata and Kleene's Theorem
(1.2, 1.3)
Wed 01 Feb L05 Non-Regular Languages (1.4)
Fri 03 Feb L06 Myhill-Nerode Theorem (1.4 plus)
Mon 06 Feb L07 (END OF ADD/DROP) CFL's and Grammars (2.1)
Wed 08 Feb L08 Grammars and PDA's (2.1, 2.2)
Fri 10 Feb L09 Equivalence of CFL's and PDA's (2.2)
Mon 13 Feb L10 Non-CFL's, Properties of CFL's (2.3)
Wed 15 Feb L11 Turing Machines, with Examples (3.1)
Fri 17 Feb L12 Variants of Turing Machines (3.2)
Mon 20 Feb --- NO CLASS (President's Day Holiday)
Wed 22 Feb L13 Representing Algorithms as Turing Machines (3.3)
Thu 23 Feb X01 FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 pm, ILC S140) on Lectures 1-13
PART II: Computability, Polynomial Time, and NP-Completeness
Fri 24 Feb --- NO CLASS (makeup for exam)
Mon 27 Feb L14 Decidable Languages (4.1)
Wed 01 Mar L15 The Halting Problem (4.2)
Fri 03 Mar L16 Proving Languages to be Undecidable (4.2)
Mon 06 Feb L17 Undecidable Problems in Formal Language Theory (5.1)
Mon 06 Mar --- Last day to Drop with "DR" (graduates)
Wed 08 Mar L18 Post's Correspondence Problem (5.2)
Wed 08 Mar --- Last Day to Drop With W or elect P/F (undergraduates)
Fri 10 Mar L19 Mapping Reducibility and More Undecidable Problems (5.3)
SPRING BREAK
Mon 20 Mar L20 Review of Chapters 4 and 5
Wed 22 Mar L21 The Recursion Theorem (6.1)
Fri 24 Mar L22 A Definition of Information (6.4)
Mon 27 Mar L23 Time Complexity (7.1)
Wed 29 Mar L24 The Class P (7.2)
Fri 31 Mar L25 The Class NP (7.3)
Mon 03 Apr L26 NP Completeness (7.4)
Wed 05 Apr L27 The Cook-Levin Theorem (7.4)
Fri 07 Apr L28 Some NP-Complete Problems (7.5)
Tue 11 Apr X02 SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 pm, ILC S211) on Lectures 14-28
PART III: Topics in Complexity Theory
Mon 10 Apr --- NO CLASS (Makeup for second midterm)
Wed 12 Apr L29 Space Complexity Definitions (8.1)
Fri 14 Apr L30 The Class PSPACE and Savitch's Theorem (8.1, 8.2, 8.3)
Mon 17 Apr --- NO CLASS (Patriots' Day Holiday)
Tue 18 Apr L31 (MONDAY SCHEDULE) Games, PSPACE and P-Completeness (8.3)
Wed 19 Apr L32 Reachability, L, NL, NL-Completeness (8.4)
Fri 21 Apr L33 NL = co-NL (8.5) (DAVE AWAY)
Mon 24 Apr L34 Circuit Complexity, The NC and AC Classes (9.3, 10.5)
Wed 26 Apr L35 Alternation (10.3)
Fri 28 Apr L36 More Alternation and Circuits (10.3, 10.5)
Mon 01 May L37 Course Review and Evaluations
Tue 09 May FX Final Exam (cumulative) Goessmann 64, 10:30-12:30
Last modified 17 April 2017