Readings
This section contains the weekly reading assignments for the course. Most of the reading assignments refer to the required textbook: Sipser, Michael. Introduction to the Theory of Computation. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Course Technology, 2005. ISBN: 0534950973.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction and Review | ||
| L1 | Introduction | Chapter 0 |
| R1 | Math Review | Chapter 0 |
| Finite Automata, Regular Languages, Regular Expressions | ||
| L2 | Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA) | Section 1.1 |
| L3 | Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFA) | |
| R2 | DFAs and NFAs | Sections 1.1, 1.2 |
| L4 | Regular Expressions | Section 1.3 |
| L5 | Non-Regular Languages | Section 1.4 |
| R3 | Regular Expressions and Non-Regular Languages | Sections 1.3, 1.4 |
| L6 | Algorithms for Automata | Chapter 1, Section 4.1 |
| L7 | Quiz 1 | |
| R4 | Quiz Questions and Automata Wrap-up | |
| Computability Theory | ||
| L8 | Turing Machines | Chapter 3 (Sections 3.1, 3.3, and 3.2 - except Nondeterminism) |
| L9 | Nondeterministic Turing Machines | Section 3.2 (especially pp. 138-141), Section 4.2 (especially pp. 160-164) |
| R5 | Turing Machines | Chapter 3 |
| L10 | Undecidability | Chapter 4 (skip pp. 156-158 on context-free languages), Section 5.1 (up to p. 176) |
| L11 | PCP | Computation histories (see p. 176) and Section 5.2 |
| R6 | Undecidability | Chapter 4 (up to p. 176), Sections 5.1 (except pp. 181-182), 5.2 |
| L12 | Counter and Stack Machines | Hopcroft, John, Rajeev Motwani, and Jeffrey Ullman. Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation. 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 2000, section 8.5. ISBN: 0201441241. |
| L13 | Reducibility | Section 5.3 |
| R7 | Counter and Stack Machines, Reducibility, Rice's Theorem | Section 5.3 Hopcroft, John, Rajeev Motwani, and Jeffrey Ullman. Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation. 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 2000, section 8.5. ISBN: 0201441241. |
| L14 | Recursion Theorem | Section 6.1 |
| L15 | Quiz 2 | |
| R8 | Quiz 2 Questions and Computability Wrap-up | |
| Complexity Theory | ||
| L16 | Time Complexity | Sections 7.1, 7.2 |
| L17 | Nondeterministic Time Complexity | Section 7.3 |
| R9 | P and NP | Sections 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 |
| L18 | NP-Completeness | Section 7.4 (except Theorem 7.30) |
| L19 | Cook-Levin Theorem | Section 7.4 (Theorem 7.30) |
| R10 | Poly-Time Reductions | |
| L20 | NP-Completeness II | Section 7.5 Optional Reading: Cormen, Thomas H., Charles E. Leiserson, and Ronald L. Rivest. Introduction to Algorithms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990, chapter 36.5. ISBN: 0262530910. |
| R11 | NP-Completeness | Section 7.5 |
| L21 | Advanced Time Complexity | Sections 9.1, 9.2 |
| L22 | Quiz 3 | |
| R12 | Quiz 3 Questions and End of Time Complexity | |
| L23 | Space Complexity | Sections 8.4, 8.5, 8.6 |
| L24 | Space Complexity II | Sections 8.4, 8.5, 8.6 |
| R13 | Space Complexity III | Sections 8.4, 8.5, 8.6 |
| L25 | Probabilistic Complexity | Section 10.2 |
| L26 | Probabilistic Complexity (cont.) | Section 10.2 |
| R14 | Probabilistic Complexity and Interactive Proofs | Optional Reading: Section 10.4 |
| Final Exam Review Session (Optional) | ||
| Final Exam | ||
