CSCI3255: Math Foundations of Computer Science

Fall 2008
Instructor: Dr. Norman Landis
Office: Becton 211B
Phone: 692-2230 (University Extension 2230)
E-mail: csci3255f08@optonline.net
Website: www.NormanLandis.com/CSCI3255.htm
Office Hours: Monday 1-2, Wednesday 1-2, 4-5:15
Text: An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata, (4th ed.) - Linz
(Jones & Bartlett)
Requirements: 25% - Exam 1 (one hour)
25% - Exam 2 (one hour)
50% - Final Exam (two hours) cumulative.
Students may not do extra credit work to make up for missing exams or
poor exam grades.
Exams are letter-graded on a limited curve, determined by both expected
and actual curve.

Syllabus
Week Section Topic
1 1.1 Mathematical Preliminaries
2 1.2 Basic Concepts
2.1 Deterministic Finite Automata (dfa)
3 2.2 Nondeterministic Finite Automata (ndfa)
2.3 Equivalence of dfa's and ndfa's
4 3.1 Regular Expressions (re)
5 3.2 Connection between re's and Regular Languages
3.3 Regular Grammars
6 4.1 Closure Properties of Regular Languages
4.2 Elementary Questions about Regular Languages
Exam 1 covering 1.1 through 3.3
7 4.3 Identifying Nonregular Languages
8 5.1 Context-free Grammars (cfg)
5.2 Parsing and Ambiguity
9 6.2 Chomsky and Greibach Normal Forms for cfg's
7.1 Nondeterministic Pushdown Automata (pda)
7.2 Pda's and Context-free Grammars
10 8.1 Pumping Lemma for Context-free Languages
8.2 Closure Properties of Context-free Languages
11 9.1 Turing Machines
9.2 More on Turing Machines
Exam 2 covering 4.1 through 8.2
12 9.3 Turing's Thesis
11.1 Recursive and Recursively Enumerable Languages
1311.4 The Chomsky Hierarchy
12.1 Unsolvable Problems
1412.2 Undecidable Problems for Rec. Enum. Languages
15 Final Exam
Students: You must send an e-mail with your name in the subject line to the
above address by the end of the first week.
CSCI3255: Math Foundations of Computer Science
Fall 2008
Homework solutions will be posted on the website when possible.