CSC 320 - Proposed Course Schedule

This schedule is subject to change and is just meant as a rough guide. This table will be modified to reflect what actually happens.

Date Topic Reading
or Title
What's due
(announcements)
Week 1
Jan 4 Overview, mathematical preliminaries, proofs. 1.1-1.4. .
Jan 5 Proofs, languages.
Islanders with red eyes problem.
1.4-1.8. Assignment #1 posted.
Hats problem: logic.ps.
Mathematical induction: Induction.pdf.
Week 2
Jan 9 Proofs, cont., languages.
Regular Expressions.
Chapter 2. .
Jan 11 DFAs.
Odd numbers < 1010 problem.
Chapter 2. .
Jan 12 More DFAs, intro NFAs.
Trick with 4 cards.
Chapter 2. .
Week 3
Jan 16 More NFAs. Chapter 2. .
Jan 18 NFA = DFA, closure properties. Chapter 2.
Jan 19 NFA = RE, R(i,j,k) recurrence. Chapter 2. Assignment #1 due.
Assignment #2 posted.
Week 4
Jan 23 Intro to pumping lemma. Chapter 2. The amazing guide.
Hummer shuffles: Chapter 1.
Ron Graham.
Article about Persi Diaconis.
Jan 25 More pumping lemma.
Chapter 2. .
Jan 26 FA and rational GF.
Equivalence relations and state minimization.
Chapter 2. .
Week 5
Jan 30 Intro to CFLs. Chapter 3. .
Feb 1 Parse trees.
Intro to PDAs.
Chapter 3. .
Feb 2 Pumping lemma for CFLs. Chapter 3. Imbolic (Wiccan), no exam / no work
Week 6
Feb 6 . . .
Feb 8


Feb 9 . . Assignment #2 due.
Week 7
Feb 13 READING BREAK. READING BREAK. READING BREAK.
Feb 15 READING BREAK. READING BREAK. READING BREAK.
Feb 16 READING BREAK. READING BREAK. READING BREAK.
Assignment #3 posted.
Week 8
Feb 20


Feb 22 MIDTERM
MIDTERM
MIDTERM
Feb 23


Week 9
Feb 27 Midterm Solutions. . .
Feb 29 Turing Machines. .
Mar 1 . . Assignment #3 due.
Assignment #4 posted.
Week 10
Mar 5


Mar 7


Mar 8 Universal Turing Machines.

Week 11
Mar 12 The halting problem. . .
Mar 14 Undecidable problems. . Shortest program.
Mar 15 More undecidable problems. Hoare/Allison paper.
Golly.
HashLife.
GoL news.
GOL TM.
Hackers
Assignment #4 due.
Assignment #5 posted.
Week 12
Mar 19 Computational Complexity. Chapter 6. .
Mar 21 . . New Year's Day / Naw-Ruz / Navruz
(Baha'i / Muslim)
no exam / no work
Mar 22 NP-completeness. . Cook description (at Clay I.).
Sipser talks about P vs NP.
Proofs of P?NP.
An interesting take.
Week 13
Mar 26 . . .
Mar 28 More poly-time reductions. Chapters 6 and 7. SUBSET-SUM reduction.
Mar 29 . .
Week 14
Apr 2 . . Holy Week (Orthodox Christian)
no exam / no work.
Apr 4 . . Holy Week (Orthodox Christian)
no exam / no work.
Apr 5 . . Holy Week (Orthodox Christian)
no exam / no work.
Assignment #5 due.
Week 15
Apr 10 EXAMS BEGIN
GOOD LUCK GOOD LUCK
Apr 25 EXAMS END HAVE GREAT SUMMER! HAVE GREAT SUMMER!