COMP 494 - Selected Topics: Theory of Computation - Term 1 of 2000

General Information

• Phil Rogaway . E-mail: rogaway@cs.ucdavis.edu
• Office hours: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 4-5:30
• A recent syllabus (this year will be similar)
• Book errata
• Grading (subject to change): 25% midterm - 40% final - 15% quizzes (three) - 10% homework - 10% attendance
• Histograms
• Reading: Sipser 1; 2.1, 2.3. (We will cover chapters 1-5, 7)

Problem Sets

• PS1
• PS2 and PS2 Solutions in pdf (no pictures) or PostScript
• PS3 and PS3 Solutions
• PS4 and PS4 Solutions
• PS5
• PS6

Exams and Practice Exams

• Quiz 1
• Midterm (PostScript) and Midterm (pdf)
• Quiz 2
• Quiz 3
• Practice Final

Lecture list

• Lecture 1 - T Jun 27 - Introduction. Regular Languages. First look at a DFA. (1.5; 1.5)
• Lecture 2 - R Jun 29 - Strings and languages. (1.5; 3)
• Lecture 3 - F Jun 30 - More on languages. Example DFAs. (1.5; 4.5)
• Lecture 4 - T Jul 4 - More examples: designing DFAs. Formal definition of DFA. (1.5; 6)
• Lecture 5 - R Jul 6 - Definition of L(M). Pigeonhole principle and applications. (1.5; 7.5)
• Lecture 6 - F Jul 7 - Properties of DFA-acceptable languages. The product construction. (1.5; 9)
• Lecture 7 - T Jul 11 - PS1 solutions. Review of the product construction. NFAs. (1.5; 10.5)
• Lecture 8 - R Jul 13 - Formal defn of NFA. Properties of NFA-acceptable languages. (1.5; 12)
• Lecture 9 - R Jul 20 - Quiz 1. Properties of NFA-acceptable languages. (1.5; 13.5)
• Lecture 10 - F Jul 21 - NFA-acceptable languages = DFA-acceptable languages (subset construction). (1.5; 15)
• Lecture 11 - T Jul 24 - Regular expressions. Converting a regular expression to an NFA. (1.5; 16.5)
• Lecture 12 - R Jul 26 - Converting an NFA to a regular expression. (1; 17.5)
• Lecture 13 - T Aug 8 - Showing languages are NOT regular. The pumping lemma. (1.5; 19)
• Lecture 14 - R Aug 10 - Practice with pumping lemma. Context-free languages. First examples. (1.5; 20.5)
• Lecture 15 - F Aug 11 - Review of regular languages. (1.5; 22)
• ................ - S Aug 12 - Midterm
• Lecture 16 - T Aug 15 - Defns and examples for CFLs. Ambiguity. (1.5; 23.5)
• Lecture 17 - R Aug 17 - Inherently ambiguous languages. Regular languages are CF. Closure properties (1.5; 25)
• Lecture 18 - R Aug 18 - The PL for CFLs. (1.5; 26.5)
• Lecture 19 - R Aug 29 - Computability. Turing machines (examples and informal description). (1.5; 28)
• Lecture 20 - R Aug 31 - Formal treatment of TMs. Acceptable vs. decidable languages. (1.5; 29.5)
• Lecture 21 - F Sep 1 - Quiz 2. Review. TM variants. (1.5; 31)
• Lecture 22 - S Sep 2 - More models of computation. The Church-Turing Thesis (1.5; 32.5)
• Lecture 23 - T Sep 5 - Decision procedures dealing with regular and CF langugaes. (1.5; 34)
• Lecture 24 - R Sep 7- More examples. Dovetailing. Properties of rec/r.e. languages. (1.5; 35.5)
• Lecture 25 - F Sep 8- Reductions: properties of many-one reduciblity, and examples. (1.5; 37)
• Lecture 26 - T Sep 12- Practice with doing reductions. (1.5; 38.5)
• Lecture 27 - R Sep 14- More practice doing reductions. (1.5; 40)
• Lecture 28 - F Sep 15 - Quiz 3. Complexity theory: P and NP. (1.5; 41.5)
• Lecture 29 - T Sep 19 - Review of computability theory (in response to bad quiz 3) (1.5; 43)
• Lecture 30 - R Sep 21 - P, 3SAT, CLIQUE, NP, Cook's theorem, NP-Completness, Reductions, 3SAT < CLIQUE. (1.5; 44.5)
• Lecture 31 - F Sep 22 - Review: going over the practice final. (1.5; 46)