Grading and AssignmentsTopTextTopics and Readings

Topics and Readings

The following is a tentative schedule of the topics that will be considered in each class this semester. Check the web page regularly for updates as this schedule is likely to be revised as the semester proceeds. The readings for each topic should be completed before the class with which they are listed.

Date Topic Readings
1) 2/7 Sets, Countability, and Computability
2) 2/10 Strings, Languages, and Deciders Chapter 0
3) 2/12 Deterministic finite automata pages 31-43
4) 2/17 Proving languages are regular
5) 2/19 Closure Properties and non-deterministic finite automata pages 44-54
6) 2/21 Equivalence of DFAs and NFAs. More closure properties pages 54-62
7) 2/24 Closure Properties, Regular expressions and GNFAs pages 63-66
8) 2/26 Regular expressions. Equivalence with finite automata pages 66-76
9) 2/28 Non-regular languages and the pumping lemma pages 77-82
10) 3/2 More pumping and closure properties.
11) 3/4 Proving non-regularity with the MyHill-Nerode theorem problem 1.52 and its solution
12) 3/6 State minimization and the MyHill-Nerode theorem
13) 3/9 Context-free grammars + languages pages 101-107,
14) 3/11 Context-free Languages + Push Down Automata pages 111-116
15) 3/13 Push Down Automata pages 107-108 + 111-116
16) 4/6 Review of CFLs, Nondeterminism in PDAs and Parse Trees pages 111-127
17) 4/8 Ambiguity, Pumping CFLs, Closure Properties and CNF pages 107-111, 125-132
18) 4/10 Equivalence of PDAs and CFGs pages 117-125
19) 4/13 Turing Machines pages 165-175
20) 4/15 Turing Machines pages 165-175
21) 4/17 The Church-Turing Thesis pages 176-187
22) 4/20 The Church-Turing Thesis pages 176-187
23) 4/22 Decidable Languages (examples) pages 193-200
24) 4/24 Recursively Enumerable = Recognizable + Closure Properties pages 180-181
25) 4/27 Undecidable sets. Reductions pages 201-220
26) 4/29 Reductions and Computation Histories pages 220-226
27) 5/1 Mapping Reduction and Rice's Theorem pp. 234-239, problem 5.28 and its solution
28) 5/4 Resource Limited Computations pages 221-225, 275-286
29) 5/6 P, NP, Reductions and NP-completeness pages 292-304
30) 5/8 Reductions + The Cook-Levin Theorem pages 304-310
31) 5/11 The Cook-Levin Theorem + Space Complexity pages 331-336
32) 5/13 Space Complexity pages 331-336 (optionally 337-347 since we will take a different approach)

Grading and AssignmentsTopTextTopics and Readings