Last year’s list of lectures, and a list from Fall 2012 (includes videos).

ECS 120 - Spring 2015 - List of Lecture Topics

Lecture Topic
Week 1 Lect 01 - M 3/30 Introduction. Three sample problems and their relative complexities. First language-theoretic defns: alphabets and strings.
Lect 02 - W 4/01 Strings and operations on them. Languages and operators on them, including Kleene closure (star).
Disc 01 - W 4/01 PR. Hints on PS #1. More operations on languages. First examples of DFAs and the languages they accept.
Lect 03 - F 4/03 More exampls of DFAs. Different view of the language of a DFA M. Formalizing DFAs and their languages.
Week 2 Lect 04 - M 4/06 Closure properties of the DFA-acceptable languages. The product construction. Definition of an NFA.
Lect 05 - W 4/08 Defining the language of an NFA. Closure properties for the NFA-acceptable languages.
Disc 02 - W 4/08 Definition review, practice with making DFAs, Kleene closure (star). Aaron’s notes.
Lect 06 - F 4/10 Quiz 1. Consequences of DFA/NFA equivalence on closure properties. Proof of DFA/NFA equivalence.
Week 3 Lect 07 - M 4/13 Finish DFA/NFA equivalence. Showing DFAs of minimal size using the pigeonhole principle. The Myhill-Nerode theorem.
Lect 08 - W 4/15 Restatement and proof of (some of) the Myhill-Nerode theorem. Algorithm for DFA minimization.
Disc 03 - W 4/15 Review of: subset construction, equivalence classes, and DFA minimization.
Lect 09 - F 4/17 Regular languages and regular expressions. Regular languages = DFA/NFA acceptable ones.
Week 4 Lect 10 - M 4/20 Methods for showing languages not regular, including the pumping lemma.
Lect 11 - W 4/22 Using closure properties to show languages not regular. decision procedures for regular langauges and their efficiency
Disc 04 - W 4/22 Review: pumping lemma, nonregular languages, and decision procedures. Aaron’s notes.
Lect 12 - F 4/24 CFLs and CFGs: examples and definitions. Ambiguity.
Week 5 Lect 13 - M 4/27 Aaron lecturing. More on ambiguity. Inherently ambiguous languages. PDAs. CFG to PDA conversion.
Exam 1 - W 4/29 Midterm
Lect 14 - W 4/29 No discussion section this week.
Lect 15 - F 5/01 Review of CFLs. Converting a CFG into Chomsky Normal Form (CNF). The CYK Algorithm for CFG membership.
Week 6 Lect 16 - M 5/04 Showing languages not context free: a pumping lemma. Closure and non-closure properties.
Lect 17 - W 5/06 More on CFLs closure properties. Decision questions on CFLs. Idea of a Turing machine. A book Turing read as a child.
Disc 06 - W 5/06 Examples of CNF conversion, the CYK algorithm, and using the pumping lemma for CFLs.
Lect 18 - F 5/08 Programming a TM. Formalization of a TM as a 7-tuple. Definitions of a TM deciding and accepting a language.
Week 7 Lect 19 - M 5/11 Turing decidable (recursive) and Turing acceptable (r.e.) langauges. TM variants. RAMs.
Lect 20 - W 5/13 Finish alternative models of computation. The Church-Turing thesis. (Know what this says!) Arguments for and against.
Disc 07 - W 5/13 Unrestricted grammars generate exactly the r.e. languages. Undecidablity of the halting problem, HALT. Aaron’s notes
Lect 21 - F 5/15 Quiz 2. Luis Esparza (Program Coordinator at ICC): Finding jobs and internships.
Week 8 Lect 22 - M 5/18 Finish Church-Turing thesis. The four-possiblities theorem. Encodings. Classification guesses.
Lect 23 - W 5/20 PS7 awards. Undecidability of ATM. Definition and properties of many-one reductions, the ≤m relation.
Disc 08 - W 5/20 Classification guesses. Many-one reductions: HALT ≤m ATM and ATM ≤m REGULAR.
Lect 24 - F 5/22 Examples of many-one reductions to show problems undecidable, not r.e., or not co-r.e.
Week 9 Lect xx - M 5/25 Holiday — no class
Lect 25 - W 5/27 More examples of reductions. Dovetailing. Rice’s theorem. Undecidability of L(G)=Σ* for a CFG G.
Disc 09 - W 5/27 Finish ATM ≤m CFGALL. Proof of Rice’s Theorem. Uncountability of the set of all languages. Aaaron’s notes
Lect 26 - F 5/29 Defs of P and NP. SAT, CFGALL, DFAALL, DIOPHANTINE, G3C. Defs of p and NPC.
Week 10 Lect 27 - M 6/01 Review of complexity theory. How to show a language NPC. Cook-Levin theorem. NP completeness of 3SAT and G3C.
Lect 28 - W 6/03 Proof of the Cook-Levin Theorem. Another NPC result: SUBSETSUM. Course evaluations.
Disc 10 - W 6/03 Finish SUBSETSUM reduction. More polynomial-time reductions. Aaaron’s notes
Revi 01 - F 6/05 Review session
Week 11 Lect xx - m 6/08 Final – 3:30 pm in our usual room (1003 Giedt)