Theory of Computing, Spring 2013
The goal of this course is to acquaint the students with the basic concepts
in computation theory and to cultivate the students' ability in analyzing the
complexity of computational problems.
Announcements
06/30: grade report available; please send inquiries, if any, to the instructor by 2PM July 02.
-
06/06: the TA session rescheduled on 06/10 will be held in the same classroom. (There might be other students in the room waiting for the class starting from 2:20PM, but we have officially booked the room for 1:20-2:10PM.)
06/06: check out revised Slide 56 of Time Complexity and NP-Completeness.
05/29: reminder: there will be a TA session on 06/05.
05/22:
HW#10 due on 05/29.
05/22: notes/slides for Time Complexity and NP-Completeness available.
05/16: reminder: there will be a TA session on 05/22.
05/15:
HW#9 due on 05/22.
05/15: notes/slides for Reducibility available.
-
05/07:
HW#8 due on 05/15.
05/01: notes/slides for Decidability and Undecidability available.
04/24:
HW#7 due on 05/01.
04/24: notes/slides for Turing Machines available.
-
-
04/10:
HW#6 due on 04/17.
04/01:
HW#5 due on 04/10.
03/27: reminder: there will be a TA session on 04/10.
03/26: notes/slides for Context-Free Languages available.
03/20:
HW#4 due on 03/27.
03/19: reminder: there will be a TA session on 03/20, starting at 1:20PM.
03/18: HW#3 revised; please read the additional note for this revision.
03/13:
HW#3 due on 03/20.
03/06:
HW#2 due on 03/13.
03/05: notes/slides for Regular Languages available.
02/27:
HW#1 due on 03/06.
02/20: notes/slides for Introduction and Mathematical Preliminaries available.
Instructor
Yih-Kuen Tsay (蔡益坤), NTU IM Dept.,
3366-1189, Xtsay@im.ntu.edu.twX (between the enclosing pair of X's).
Lectures
Wednesday 2:20~5:20PM, Room B01, Management I.
TA sessions will be
scheduled prior to some of the class meetings between 1:20 and 2:10PM.
Office Hours
Tuesday 1:30~2:00PM, Wednesday 1:30~2:00PM, or by appointment, Room 1108,
Management II.
TA
Jui-Shun Lai (賴瑞舜), 3366-1205, Xnarration.lai@gmail.comX (between the
enclosing pair of X's).
Wei-Hsien Chang (張暐獻), 3366-1205,
Xb96705043@ntu.edu.twX (between the enclosing pair of X's).
Textbook
Note: according to the local distributor, the 3rd edition has not arrived in Taiwan. Its main difference from the 2nd edition is a new section on deterministic pushdown automata in Chapter 2. We will follow mainly the 2nd edition, but it should be safe for you to use the 3rd edition (if you manage to get one).
Syllabus/Schedule (with links to notes/slides)
This is an introductory course to the theory of computation. It covers
various mathematical models, including automata and Turing machines, for
physical computing machineries along with their computational
capabilities/limitations. In terms of specific topics and the order of their
exposition, the course will follow closely the book by Sipser. (Note: a TA
session will precede a class meeting whose date is marked with an *. There
are four TA sessions on 3/20, 4/10, 5/22, and 6/5, making up one skipped class
meeting.)
Introduction and Mathematical Preliminaries (2 weeks: 2/20, 2/27) [
notes,
slides]
Finite Automata and Regular Languages (3 weeks: 3/6, 3/13, 3/20*) [
notes,
slides]
Context-Free Languages and Pushdown Automata (2 weeks: 3/27, 4/10*) [
notes,
slides]
Midterm (2013/04/17)
Turing Machines (1.5 weeks: 4/24, 5/1a) [
notes,
slides]
Decidability and Undecidability (2 weeks: 5/1b, 5/8, 5/15a) [
notes,
slides]
-
Time Complexity and NP-Completeness (2 weeks: 5/29, 6/5*) [
notes,
slides]
Final (2013/06/19)
References
Grading
Homework 20%, Participation 10%, Midterm 30%, Final 40%.