syllabus
time: Tues/Thurs 10:00 - 11:20am
place: Sci 217
level: advanced
credits: 4
faculty: Jim Mahoney, Matt Ollis
text: Introduction to the Theory of Computation, 2nd Edition,
Michael Sipser, ISBN 0534950973
e.g. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0534950973
A mathematical introduction to the theory of computation. Topics include automata such as Turing machines, formal languages such as context-free grammar, and computability questions as described by "NP-complete" problems and Godel's incompleteness theorem. This is an upper-level course that presents the foundations of theoretical computer science. Expect practice with lots of mathematical proofs, with programming examples to build intuition. Prerequisite: Formal mathematics and programming experience
Here is an approximate schedule, based on how the course played out in 2008. The interests and abilities of the class may steer us in a different direction this time.
Week starting
1 Jan 25 math and programming preliminaries
2 Feb 1 finite automata
3 Feb 8 regular languages
4 15 context-free grammars
5 22 pushdown automata
6 Mar 1 Turing machines mid-term evals
7 Mar 7 what is an algorithm? VT Town Mtg
-- spring break --
8 28 decidable languages
9 Apr 4 the halting problem
10 11 reducibility
11 19 P and NP
12 25 NP-completeness
13 May 2 course round-up
reading days May 5 and 6
