Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani

K. K. Birla Goa Campus

First Semester 2016-2017
Course Handout (Part-II)
In addition to part I this portion gives further specific details regarding the course Theory of
Computation.

Course Details
Course Title : Theory of Computation
Course Number : CSF351
Instructor-In-charge : A Baskar

Scope and Objective

Computers are very powerful. It has some limitations but in future it will be omnipotent.
It is just a matter of time". This is the belief most of us have. In this course, we will analyze
this claim and show there are things computers cant do.
To show this negative result first we have to find an appropriate model for computers.
There are many models and we take Turing machines as our candidate. But it is not a good
idea to start with Turing Machines as either we will get bogged down with details or we
might oversimplify it. So we start with a simpler model called Finite State Automata. It is
a restricted model but easier to deal with it. After getting grips on basic concepts, we will
enhance the model step by step and eventually study Turing Machines.
In this process, we will study some important concepts such as nondeterminism, alter-
ation, reduction, computability and address algorithmic questions. The ideas we study are
good enough to understand efficient computability but we will focus only on effective com-
putability. One could also study applications of finite state automata such as, verification,
compilers, but we will not do it in this course.

Text book
(T1 ) Harry Lewis, Christos Papadimitriou, Elements of the Theory of Computation, Second
Edition, Pearson Education, Asia. 1998

References
(R 1 ) Dexter Kozen, Automata and Computability, Springer 1997

(R 2 ) John E Hopcroft, Jeffery D Ullman, Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and

Computation Indian Student Edition, Narosa Publishing House, 2002

(R 3 ) Michael Sipser, Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Second Edition, 2012

(R 4 ) David Harel, Computers Ltd, What they really cant do, Oxford University Press, 2000

1
Course Plan
Modules

Module
Topic Objectives
No
To give historical background of Theory of Com-
Introduction putation and motivation. To get grips on the math-
ematical concepts used in the course.
To introduce regular languages and various repre-
I Regular Languages sentations. To understand closure properties and
limitations of regular languages.
To introduce context free languages and Push-
II Context Free Languages down Automata. To show that nondeterminism
adds power to PDA
To show that there are functions which are not
III Turing Machines
computable.

2
 Lecture Schedule

Lecture Topics Reading Module No

1 Introduction, Motivation I
2 Infinite Sets, Proofs T1 1.4-1.5 I
3 Alphabets, Languages, Representation T1 1.7-1.8 I
4,5 Deterministic Finite Automata, Regular sets T1 2.1 II
6 Non-Deterministic Finite Automata T1 2.2 II
7,8 Closure Properties, Equivalences T1 2.3 II
9,10 Pumping Lemma T1 2.4 II
11,12 DFA State Minimization T1 2.5 II
13,14 Myhill Nerode Theorem R1 II
15,16 Decidability of Presburger Arithmetic Lecture Notes II
17 Context Free Grammars T1 3.1 III
18,19 Parse Trees, Ambiguity T1 3.2 III
20 Push-Down Automata T1 3.3 III
21 Pumping Lemma for CFLs T1 3.4 III
22,23 Equivalence of PDA and CFG T1 3.4 III
24,25 Determinism, Parsing. DCFG T1 3.7 III
26-28 Turing Machines T1 4.1 IV
29 Recursive and Recursively enumerable languages T1 4.2 IV
30 Church-Turing Thesis, Universal Turing machines T1 5.1 5.2 IV
31,32 Halting problem T1 5.3 IV
33,34 Undecidable problems T1 5.4,5.5 IV
35,36 Godels Incompleteness Theorem R1 IV
37 Summary and Review

Evaluation Scheme
No Component Weightage Date Time Remarks
1 Test 1 25% 21/09/2016 4 PM 5 PM Closed Book
2 Test 2 15% 26/10/2016 4 PM 5 PM Closed Book
3 Comprehensive 40% 12/12/2016 9 AM 12 Noon Partly Open Book
4 Surprise quiz 20% - - Open Book

Chamber Consultation
Friday (3.30 PM 5 PM)

3
Notices
The course site on photon will be used and some announcements will be made in the class
during lectures.

Make-up Policy
Make-up shall be granted only in genuine cases based on individuals need and cir-
cumstances.

No marks will be awarded without make-up for that component

Instructor-In-Charge
CSF351