| Unit name | Theory of Computation |
|---|---|
| Unit code | COMS11700 |
| Credit points | 10 |
| Level of study | C/4 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | . Warinschi |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
COMS10003 Mathematical Methods for Computer Scientists, COMS10008 Imperative Programming, COMS10006 Functional Programming. |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Computer Science |
| Faculty | Faculty of Engineering |
This unit provides an introducion to various classical models of computation, the equivalence of different computational models, and limits on what can be computed in terms of uncomputability and intractability.
On completion of the unit students will understand: use regular expressions to describe the language accepted by an automaton and state Kleene, convert non-deterministic finite automata to deterministic ones, design automata/machines that accept a given language (e.g. a lexer), design a grammar for a given context-free language and give its Chomsky Normal Form, be able to apply the pumping lemma (for regular and context-free languages), understand the complexity classes P, NP and reductions to NP-complete languages, understand the Church-Turing Thesis and undecidability
20 hours of lectures. Weekly supervised problems classes. A further 70 hours are nominally set aside for coursework, private study, etc.
4 CW (20% each), 1 Presentation (20%)
The course text is Introduction to the Theory of Computation, 1st or 2nd edition. The 1st edition is out of print, but still available. All these books are available in the library.
M.Sipser. Introduction to the theory of computation. International Thompson Publishing Company. 1997. ISBN: 053494728X Recommended.
M. Garey and D. Johnson. Computers and intractability: a guide to the theory of NP completeness. W. H. Freeman. 1979. ISBN: 0716710455 Background
J. Truss Discrete mathematics for computer scientists (2nd edition) Addison-Wesley. 1998. ISBN: 0201360616 Background.
