Schedule
This schedule will develop as we go along. So check back frequently.
- week 1: finite automata
- week 2: finite automata and regular expressions
- week 3: pumping lemma for regular languages
- week 4: pushdown automata and context free languages (midterm 1)
- week 5: pushdown automata and context free languages
- week 6: turing machines
- week 7: the halting problem and proving undecidability (midterm 2)
- week 8: more undecidable problems
- week 9: P and NP, NP-completeness
- week 10: more on complexity
- Final exam
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 3/30 | Finite state automata. |
|
| Thu 4/1 | Deterministic and non-deterministic automata. |
Read Sipser, Chapters 0 and 1.1 |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 4/6 | Inductive proofs over computations. Closure properties of regular languages (FSA languages). |
Reading: Sipser 1.2 |
| Thu 4/8 | Regular Expressions. |
First homework due (see Blackboard). Reading: Sipser 1.3 |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 4/13 | The pumping lemma for regular languages. |
Reading: Sipser 1.4 |
| Thu 4/15 | Hidden Markov Models. |
Second homework due (see Blackboard). Reading: see Blackboard. |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 4/20 | Pushdown automatata. |
Reading: Sipser 2.2 |
| Thu 4/22 | First midterm. Context free grammars. |
Third homework due (see Blackboard). Sipser 2.1. |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 4/27 | Context-free grammars and pushdown automata. |
Reading: Sipser 2.1 and 2.2. |
| Thu 4/29 | The pumping lemma for context-free languages. |
Fourth homework due (see Blackboard). Reading: Sipser 2.3. |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 5/4 | More on context-free languages. |
For Tuesday, study the proof that PDAs and CFGs are equivalent and be prepared to explain its structure and underlying idea. |
| Thu 5/6 | Turing Machines. |
Fifth homework due (see Blackboard). Reading: Sipser 3 |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 5/11 | Variants of Turing machines. |
|
| Thu 5/13 |
Second Midterm. The halting problem. |
Sixth homework due (see Blackboard). Reading: Sipser 4 |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 5/18 | Undecidable problems. |
Reading: Sipser 5 |
| Thu 5/20 | Complexity. P and NP. |
Seventh homework due (see Blackboard). |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 5/25 | NP-completeness. |
|
| Thu 5/27 | More NP-complete problems. |
Eighth homework due (see Blackboard). |
| Date | What's going to happen in class | How to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Tue 6/1 | Space complexity. |
|
| Thu 6/3 | TBD. |
Nineth homework due (see Blackboard). |