CSCE 433 Formal Languages and Automata
Fall 09

Instructor: Sing-Hoi Sze
Email: shsze@cse.tamu.edu
Meeting: MWF 1:50-2:40 HRBB 104
Office Hours: MWF 12:50-1:50 HRBB 328B or by appointment

Textbook

Hopcroft J.E., Motwani R. and Ullman J.D. Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation. Addison-Wesley.

Goal

This is an undergraduate level course which studies formal models of computation and the relationships between them. The course will focus on the question "what is computable" versus "what is not computable" in each model.

Topics

• Finite automata and regular expressions: deterministic finite automata, nondeterministic finite automata, regular expressions, equivalence, closure properties, pumping lemma.
• Context-free grammar and pushdown automata: context-free grammar, pushdown automata, equivalence, closure properties, Chomsky normal form, pumping lemma.
• Turing machines: Turing machines, variants, nondeterministic Turing machines, decidability and undecidability, NP-completeness.

Grading

• Homework assignments (30%): short written assignments handed out every one or two weeks.
• Two midterms (20% each).
• One final exam (30%).