CSCI (Math) 361
Theory of Computation

Lecture Schedule
Fall, 1999

During the course of the term we will be covering most of Chapters 1 through 5 as well as extra material on the lambda and p-calculi (models of functional and concurrent programming). We may also cover some other material on concurrency if time permits. The book we are using is a new edition from the one that I used two years ago. As a result, the syllabus is likely to be only an approximation to the actual schedule. I will continue to update the schedule during the term to reflect our actual progress.

Date

Topic

Reading

Homework

Sept. 10

Overview, math preliminaries, closure

1.1-1.3, 1.6

1 out

Sept. 13

Proof Techniques

1.4-1.5

2 out

Sept. 15

Alphabets, & Languages

1.7

3 out; 1 due

Sept. 17

Languages and Regular Expressions

1.8

4 out; 2 due

Sept. 20

Deterministic Finite Automata

2.1

5 out; 3 due

Sept. 22

Nondeterministic Finite Automata

2.2

6 out, 4 due

Sept. 24

Equivalence of DFAs & NDFAs

2.2

7 out, 5 due

Sept. 27

Closure properties of finite automata

2.3

8 out; 6 due

Sept. 29

Finite Automata & Regular Expressions

2.3

9 out; 7 due

Oct. 1

Pumping Lemma for Finite Automata

2.4

10 out, 8 due

Oct. 4

Minimization & Simplification

2.5

11 out, 9 due

Oct. 6

Context-Free Grammars

3.1

12 out, 10 due

Oct. 8

Parse trees

3.2

13 out, 11 due

Oct. 11

Pushdown Automata

3.3

14 out, 12 due

Oct. 13

PDAs & CFGs

3.4

15 out, 13 due

Oct. 15

Catch-up and Review for Exam

  

14 due

Oct. 18

Reading Period

    

Oct. 20

Midterm distributed / Properties of CFG’s

3.5

15 due

Oct. 22

Parsing & CFG’s

3.7

16 out

Oct. 25

Parsing & CFG’s

3.7

17 out

Oct. 27

Turing Machines

4.1

18 out, 16 in

Oct. 29

Computing w/Turing Machines

4.2

19 out, 17 in

Nov. 1

Extensions of TM's

4.3

20 out, 18 in

Nov. 3

Random Access TM's

4.4

21 out, 19 in

Nov. 5

Non-deterministic TM's

4.5

22 out, 20 in

Nov. 8

Mu-recursive function

4.7

23 out, 21 in

Nov. 10

Lambda calculus

handout

24 out, 22 in

Nov. 12

Lambda calculus

handout

25 out, 23 in

Nov. 15

Church's thesis and universal TM's

5.1-2

24 in

Nov. 17

Halting Problem

5.3

Midterm out, 25 in

Nov. 19

Undecidable Problems on TM's

5.4

26 out, Midterm in

Nov. 22

Undecidable problems on grammars

5.5

27 out

Nov. 29

Properties of recursive languages

5.7

28 out, 26 in

Dec. 1

Pi calculus

handout

29 out, 27 in

Dec. 3

Pi calculus

handout

30 out, 28 in

Dec. 6

Pi calculus

29 in

Dec. 8

Summary and review

30 in

.

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