This syllabus is available on-line at http://www.cs.bc.edu/~straubin/cs385-07/385.html.

Contents

• Instructor
• Class Meetings
• Textbook
• Course Content
• Required Background
• Required Work
• Grading
• Detailed Schedule
  

Instructor

Howard Straubing

460E Fulton

Telephone: 552-3977

e-mail: straubin@cs.bc.edu

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Class Meetings

The class meets Tuesday and Thursday at 10:30PM in Fulton 250.

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Textbook

The textbook for the course is Introduction to the Theory of Computation (2nd Edition) by Michael Sipser.

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Course Content

This course is concerned with the nature of computation and the capabilities of computers, examined through the study of mathematical models of computing machines and computational problems.

More specifically, we shall see how the notions of computing machine, computational problem, and syntax can be fomally defined, beginning with very simple models and proceeding to more elaborate and powerful ones. Our first efforts in this direction (Chapters 1 and 2 of the textbook), concerning finite-state automata and context-free languages, have important applications to pattern-matching and to parsers and compilers.

The centerpiece of the course is the formalization of the notions of algorithm and computability (Chapters 3 and 4 of the text), and the proof that certain problems cannot be solved by any computer.

If time permits we should finish with a look at computational complexity, which is the subject of active current research. Here one tries to establish that certain problems, while solvable in principle, make such exorbitant demands on computing resources that they cannot possibly be solved in practice.

The course material will be drawn from Chapters 0-5, and parts of Chapters 6 and 7, of the textbook. I will also introduce some additional material concerning applications. (Pattern-matching programs that take regular expressions as inputs, and parser generators.) 

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Required Background

Students enrolled in the course should have a solid background in computer science. In practice this means successful completion of both CS1 (CS101) and CS2 (CS102), or equivalent experience. Most of the students enrolled in the course will be junior or senior computer science majors and will have taken many more computer science courses than these.

We study the capabilities of computers by reasoning about the properties of mathematical models of computation, so a strong background in mathematics is also required, enough so that you can work comfortably with the terminology and notation introduced in Chapter 0 of the textbook, and be able to follow and write mathematical proofs. If you are a computer science major, the required course in Discrete Mathematics, if successfully completed, should provide ample background. 

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Required Work

Homework

There will be a homework assignment due approximately every week. For the most part, these will be pencil-and-paper assignments consisting of problems from the textbook, together with some additional problems. Two or three of the assignments will involve the computer.

You can obtain copies of the homework assignments, and, after the due date, their solutions, by clicking on the links below. I will post solutions a few days after the assignments are due. Late homework will be given 80% of the credit it would have received if submitted on time, and no homework will be accepted after the solutions are posted. While I encourage you to discuss homework problems with one another, and to ask about them in class, you are required to prepare your solutions to the homework problems individually.

Tests

There will be one or two one-hour in-class tests, and perhaps a few brief quizzes.

Final Exam

There will be a two-hour final exam given at the normally scheduled time and day for courses in this time slot.

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Grades

To be eligible for a passing grade in the course you must satisfactorily complete at least 60% of the weekly homework assignments and hand them in before the posting of solutions. Your grade will then be calculated on the basis of the homework, tests and final exam. The homework and the final exam will each account for approximately 35% of the course grade, and the in-class tests and quizzes about 30%.

Detailed Schedule