Computer Science 601 Syllabus Spring, 2004

• This syllabus is under construction, as I am still thinking about the order of the middle lectures and I may make some significant changes in the later ones. The exam date and HW dates should be accurate.
• Many students find it useful to print out the slides for the lecture before coming to class. Click on the title of each lecture to download the slides from that day in postscript, or on the pdf symbol afterwards if you prefer pdf. You can view postscript files by downloading the free ghostview software.

• I urge all Amherst students to come to the (live) classes, but if you miss a class for some reason, the tapes will be available on reserve in the Computer Science main office. Each Wednesday the tapes for that week will be put there. Please try to use this privilege sparingly.

CMPSCI 601: Office Hours, Spring 2004
David Mix Barrington, CompSci Bldg 210, barring@cs.umass.edu	Mon 2:30-3:30, Tues 9:00 -- 11:30, and by appointment. The office hours on Tuesday are primarily for CS 601 students; the office hour on Monday is primarily for undergrad advising.
Alex Dingle, adingle@cs.umass.edu, and Stephen Hart, shart@cs.umass.edu, office hours TBA.

Questions and Answers on Homework

Please do the indicated readings from the text and handouts BEFORE coming to class.

Date	Lecture	Readings to be Completed Before Class
W, 1/28	1. Introduction, Models of Computation , pdf	[P] Chapt. 1
M, 2/2	2. Myhill Nerode Theorem , pdf	Review [HMU], [LP], or [S] as needed
W, 2/4	3. Context-Free Languages , pdf	Review [HMU], [LP], or [S] as needed;
M, 2/9	4. Turing Machines , pdf	[P] § 2.1 - 2.3, fyi: Turing's original paper
W, 2/11	5. More Turing Machines , pdf	[P] § 2.4 - 2.7; HW 1 due
T, 2/17	No class, snow
W,	6. Halting and Diagonalization, pdf	[P] § 3.1 - 3.2; fyi: Hopcroft article on TMs
M, 2/24	7. Reductions and Complete Sets, pdf	[P] § 3.3;
W, 2/26	8. Primitive Recursion, Upper Bounds, pdf	notes only
F, 2/28	9. An Undecidable Problem About CFL's, pdf	notes only
M, 3/3	10. Propositional Logic and Circuits, pdf	[BE] Chapts. 1 - 3,HW 2 due
W, 3/5	11. First-Order Logic and Truth, pdf	[BE] Chapts. 4 - 6
M, 3/10	12. The Tarski Game, First-Order Axioms, pdf	[BE] 7 - 9; [P] § 5.1 - 5.2
W, 3/12	13. Axioms and Metatheorems, pdf	[BE] 10 - 11; [P] § 5.3; HW 3 due
3/17 -- 3/21	Spring Break
M, 3/24	14. Completeness and Compactness, pdf	[BE] 12 - 13; [P] § 5.4
W, 3/26	15. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, pdf	[BE] 19; [P] § 5.5 - 5.6, 6.1 - 6.3; HW 4 due
M, 3/31	Midterm
W, 4/2	16. Complexity: Reachability , pdf	[P] § 7.1 - 7.2 Gödel's Paper;
M, 4/7	17. Nondeterministic Space , pdf	[P] § 7.3
W, 4/9	18. Fagin and Cook Theorems, pdf	[P] § 8.1 - 8.3; HW 5 due
M,4/14	19. NP Completeness, pdf	Chapt. 9
W, 4/16	20. Approximability of NP Optimization Problems , pdf	[P] Chapt. 13;
W, 4/23	21. Alternation , pdf	HW 6 due, Alternation article, [P] § 16.2
W, 4/30	22. Parallelism and Circuits , pdf	[P] § 15.1 -- 15.3,
F, 5/2	23. More Parallelism and Circuits, pdf	notes only, HW 7 due
M, 5/5	24. PSPACE, pdf	[P] Chapt. 19
W, 5/7	25. Random Computation, pdf	[P] § 11.1 - 11.2, 15.4;
M, 5/12	26. Cryptography, pdf	[P] Chapt. 12, HW 8 due
W, 5/14	27. Summary and Conclusions, pdf
M, 5/19	Final Exam: AEBN 119	Final Study Guide