COMPSCI 250: Introduction to Computation

David Mix Barrington and Mordecai Golin

Fall 2025

The two lectures each day will be very similar and use very similar lecture slides. Lecture 250-01 (Dave) meets MWF 1:25-2:15 p.m. in Goessmann 64 ELAB. Lecture 250-02 (Mordecai) meets MWF 10:10-11:00 a.m., but in Goessmann 20. The sections will have the same homework and exams, and will use a single Canvas site.

There are eight discussion sections each Wednesday:

PART I: Logic and Number Theory

Wed 03 Sep L01  Sets and Strings (1.1, 1.2)
Wed 03 Sep ---  NO DISCUSSION (first day of class)
Fri 05 Sep L02  Propositions and Boolean Operations (1.4)
Mon 08 Sep L03  Set Operations and Truth Tables (1.5, 1.6) (END OF ADD/DROP) 
Wed 10 Sep L04  Rules for Propositional Proofs (1.7) 
Wed 10 Sep D01  What is a Proof? (1.3)
Fri 12 Sep L05  Propositional Proof Strategies (1.8)
Mon 15 Sep L06  Predicates and Relations (1.10, 2.1)
Wed 17 Sep L07  Quantifiers and Languages (2.3, 2.5) 
Wed 17 Sep D02  A Murder Mystery (1.9)
Fri 19 Sep L08  Proofs With Quantifiers (2.6)
Fri 19 Sep H01  Homework #1 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 20 Sept 11:59 p.m.) 
Mon 22 Sep L09  Relations and Functions (2.8) 
Wed 24 Sep L10  Equivalence Relations (2.10)
Wed 24 Sep D03  Practicing Proofs (2.7)
Fri 26 Sep L11  Partial Orders (2.11)
Mon 29 Sep L12  Divisibility and Primes (3.1)
Wed 01 Oct L13  Modular Arithmetic (3.3) 
Wed 01 Oct D04  Infinitely Many Primes (3.4)
Fri 03 Oct L14  The Chinese Remainder Theorem (3.5)
Fri 03 Oct H02  Homework #2 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 4 Oct 11:59 p.m.) 
Mon 06 Oct L15  The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (3.6)
Thu 09 Oct X01  FIRST MIDTERM (7-9 p.m., location TBA on Lectures 1-15

PART II: Induction, Trees, and Searching

Wed 08 Oct L16  Recursive Definition (4.1) 
Wed 08 Oct ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam) 
Fri 10 Oct L17  Proof by Induction for Naturals (4.3)
Mon 13 Oct ---  NO CLASS (Indigenous People's Day Holiday)  
Wed 15 Oct L18  Variations on Induction for Naturals (4.4) (MONDAY)
Wed 15 Oct D05  Practicing Induction Proofs (not in book)  
Fri 17 Oct L19  Proving Basic Facts on Naturals and Strings (4.6, 4.7) 
Fri 17 Oct H03  Homework #3 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 18 Oct 11:59 p.m.)   
Mon 20 Oct L20  Induction for Problem Solving (4.11)
Wed 22 Oct L21  Graphs, Paths, and Trees (4.9, 9.1)
Wed 22 Oct D06  More Induction Practice (not in book)  
Fri 24 Oct L22  Recursion on Trees (9.3)
Mon 27 Oct L23  Misconceptions about Induction (not in book)
Tue 28 Oct ---  Last Day to Drop With W or Elect Pass/Fail  
Wed 29 Oct L24  General, Breadth-First, and Depth-First Search (9.4, 9.5)  
Wed 29 Oct D07  Boolean Expression Trees (9.2)
Fri 31 Oct L25  BFS and DFS on Graphs (9.6)  
Fri 31 Oct H04  Homework #4 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 01 Nov 11:59 p.m.)  
Mon 03 Nov L26  Uniform-Cost and A* Search (9.8, 9.9)
Wed 05 Nov L27  Games and Adversary Search (9.10)
Wed 05 Nov ---  NO DISCUSSION (makeup for exam)   
Mon 10 Nov X02  SECOND MIDTERM (7-9 p.m., location TBA) on Lectures 16-27

PART III: Regular Expressions, Finite-State Machines, and Computability

Fri 07 Nov L28  Regular Expressions and Their Languages (5.1, 5.2) 
Mon 10 Nov L29  Proving Regular Language Identities (5.4)  
Wed 12 Nov L30  Proving Properties of the Regular Languages (5.5)
Wed 12 Nov D08  Designing Regular Expressions (5.3)  
Fri 14 Nov L31  What DFA's Can and Can't Do (14.1, 14.2)
Mon 17 Nov L32  The Myhill-Nerode Theorem (14.3)
Wed 19 Nov L33  NFA's and the Subset Construction (14.5, 14.6)
Wed 19 Nov D09  State Minimization (14.3, adapted)  
Fri 21 Nov L34  Killing Lambda-moves: Lambda-NFA's to NFA's (14.7)
Fri 21 Nov H05  Homework #5 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 22 Nov 11:59 p.m.) 
Mon 24 Nov L35  Constructing NFA's from Regular Expressions (14.8)

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Mon 01 Dec L36  State Elimination: NFA's to Regular Expressions (14.10)
Wed 03 Dec L37  Two-Way Automata and Turing Machines (15.1, 15.6)
Wed 03 Dec D10  Practicing Some Kleene Constructions (14.9, adapted)    
Fri 05 Dec L38  Turing Machine Semantics (15.8)
Mon 08 Dec L39  The Halting Problem and Unsolvability (15.10)
Tue 09 Dec H06  Homework #6 due at 11:59 p.m. (late day 10 Dec 11:59 p.m.)

Final Exam (cumulative), Thu 11 December, 6-8 p.m., Marcus 131


Last modified 6 September 2025