Contact Information
Announcements
- 3/25:
- HW10 is now posted. It is due on 4/13 at 11:59 PM.
- Given the demands of CSIS 605 this week, I have extended HW9 until 3/31 at 11:59 PM.
- 3/23:
- Due to unforeseen circumstances, I will need to cancel my office hours tomorrow 3/24.
I will instead be holding office hours on 3/25 from 10-11 AM, over Zoom.
- HW7 revisions are due on April 6 at 11:59 PM.
- In light of the typo on the last problem on HW7, I lowered the denominator by 1. Essentially,
if you got that problem, then it was extra credit.
- HW8 revisions are due on April 13 at 11:59 PM.
- 3/19:
- Challenge Problem 5 has been posted.
- The final problem set of the semester (likely HW11) will consist almost exclusively of challenge problems.
- If you have not started on challenge problems, now is a good time to start doing such.
- I will be out of town April 4-11. Class will be cancelled, and there will be recorded lectures instead.
- I will not be having office hours while I am out of town, but please do feel very welcome to email me.
- Please let me know about your preferences for our final exam period (April 15): survey link.
- The final exam will consist of your reflecting upon the content (hence "final reflection") while eating pizza.
Anything that you all do not finish, you are responsible for taking home and finishing.
- April 15 will be our last day of class. We will not meet during the university-scheduled final exam period.
- 3/12:
- HW9 is now posted. It is due on 3/27 at 11:59 PM.
- You should be able to complete the CFL closure properties as of today.
- The remainder of the material for HW9 will be covered next week.
- 3/8:
- HW6 revisions are due on 3/23 at 11:59 PM.
- HW8 is now posted. It is due on 3/20 at 11:59 PM.
- 3/1:
HW7 is due on 3/13 at 11:59 PM.
- 2/20:
HW5 revisions are due on 3/17 at 11:59 PM.
- 2/15:
As discussed in class on 2/11, there will be no video recording this week.
Please use this time to catch up on anything that you need to do.
- 2/7:
- HW4 revisions are due on 3/10 at 11:59 PM.
- This due date is to be considerate of the fact that things are usual hectic leading up to Spring Break.
- Quiz 7 on Regular Expressions and FSMs opens on 2/9. It is due on 2/16 at 11:59 PM.
- MT1 opens on 2/15. It will close on 2/28 at 11:59 PM.
- 2/4:
- HW5 is now posted. It is due by 2/13 at 11:59 PM.
- HW6 is now posted. It is due by 2/27 at 11:59 PM. You have everything you need to complete this now.
- Quiz 7 (Regular Expressions and FSMs/HW4) will open on 2/9. It will close on 2/17 at 11:59 PM.
- I will be out of town during the week of 2/18, for a conference.
- I will post a video recording for roughly half of a class' worth of material.
- I will hold office hours on Monday 2/16 as usual, but office hours on Tuesday 2/17 will be cancelled.
- Please do feel welcome and encouraged to email me as usual. I will be checking email, but please plan for slower responses.
- MT1 will be open from 2/16 through 2/27 at 11:59 PM.
- It will consist of 6 quizzes, covering the material through HW4.
- I will attempt to get Quiz 7 graded quickly.
- Functions will not be explicitly tested, but might be implicit in the other questions.
- MT1 will contribute 5 questions to the denominator for 410 students, and 6 questions to the denominator for 616 students.
- Each quiz on MT1 will be administered via OAKS, as usual.
- The half-class recording on 2/18 and deadline for HW6 are intentional, in light of the MT1.
- 2/1:
- HW4 revisions are due by 2/16 at 11:59 PM.
- Quizzes 5 (Combinatorics) and 6 (Graph Theory) are scheduled to open on 2/3. They close on 2/10 at 11:59 PM.
- 1/24:
HW4 has been posted. It is due by 2/6 at 11:59 PM.
- 1/24:
HW2 revisions are due by 2/8 at 11:59 PM.
- 1/23:
- HW3 is now posted. It is due by 1/30 at 11:59 PM.
- Quizzes 3 (Induction) and 4 (Equivalence Relations) are scheduled to open on 1/26. They close on 2/3 at 11:59 PM.
- Challenge Problems 3 and 4 have been posted. They are due by 4/25 at 11:59 PM.
- As usual, you are welcome to iterate on Challenge problems as outlined in the announcement on 1/17.
- 1/17:
- HW1 has been graded.
- HW1 Corrections and Reflections are due by 2/2 at 11:59 PM to OAKS.
- You may revise any problem on HW1 for full credit, even if you did not attempt that problem on your initial submission.
- Please ignore the numbers on Gradescope. The rubric labels are what matter. Grades of Outstanding and Proficiency count equally for
full credit.
- Challenge Problems 1 and 2 have been posted to OAKS. They are due by 4/25 at 11:59 PM.
- I recommend attempting a Challenge problem every 2-3 weeks, until you hit your desired threshold (see the Syllabus).
- You are welcome to turn in a Challenge problem, get feedback, and then submit revisions prior to the due date. In particular,
you are welcome to do this multiple times for any Challenge problem.
- Quiz 1- Set Equality and Quiz 2- Functions are scheduled to open on 1/19. They close on 1/26 at 11:59 PM.
- The quizzes do not count towards the denominator of your grade. So they can help your grade, but not hurt it.
- I view the quizzes as an opportunity for feedback ahead of the midterm.
- 1/15:
PS2 is now posted. It is due on 1/23 at 11:59 PM.
- 1/14:
- The technology issues appear to be fixed. We will be back in our regular room (HWEA 300) tonight.
- Update: Unfortunately, the technology issues in HWEA 300 forced us to move to HWW 211 tonight.
I am attempting to get these resolved. However, in the interim, it would be best to not rely on Zoom.
- I will be holding office hours over Zoom, on Friday 1/16 from 2:15-3:15 PM.
- As the university is closed on 1/19, I will not be holding office hours that day.
- 1/7:
- PS1 is now posted. It is due on 1/16 at 11:59 PM, to explicitly avoid conflicts with the meeting time for CSIS 605.
- For CSCI 410 students, PS1 adds 8 problems to the denominator, and
you can earn credit for all 9 problems towards your numerator. For CSIS 616 students, PS1 adds 9 problems to the denominator.
- The handwritten notes from today are in the Google Drive. We stated, but did not prove, that the congruence mod-n relation
was an equivalence relation. We will start with the proof next class.
- 1/3:
- In order to prepare homework and quizzes, you will need a tool to convert LaTeX source files into PDFs.
I use MikTeX on my local machine (Windows). Overleaf
is an online option; note that Overleaf is an interpreter and will sometimes push past compilation errors (this is not a good thing).
- Please fill out this Day One survey. It is optional, and is intended
to help me get to know you all and plan the course.
- 1/2:
- Website created. I am looking forward to proving beautiful theorems with you all next semester!
- The official course text will be my lecture notes (linked above). If you would like a supplemental text, I recommend the following:
- Sipser-- the third edition is the most recent, but the second edition will suffice. In particular, Sipser's text is the standard for similar courses at other institutions.
It's a very readable book that provides solid intuition.
- Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation, First Edition (see here).
The First Edition is targeted towards graduate students and researchers in theoretical computer science, back in the 70's when
the field was getting off the ground. The second and third editions took out all the good stuff.
- Savage's text, specifically Chapters 4-5. Chapters 2-3 would make
an excellent theoretical course in Digital Logic-- Savage is after the NC hierarchy in these earlier chapters, but does not use this language.
Be aware that my treatment and notation will differ in minor ways from these books. This is unavoidable at a course of this level.