Module overview
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Use the reduction technique to show that a problem is undecidable
- Use polynomial-time reduction to reason about the complexity class of a problem
- Ascertain and prove whether or not a given language is regular
- Ascertain and prove whether or not a given language is context-free
- Analyse the complexity of a given algorithm or problem
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- The nature and examples of undecidable problems
- The relationship between the regular, context-free and recursively enumerable classes of languages, and the state-machines that accept them
- The diagonalisation proof technique
- The complexity of algorithms and problems, and key complexity classes
Syllabus
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Type | Hours |
---|---|
Completion of assessment task | 10 |
Lecture | 36 |
Tutorial | 12 |
Preparation for scheduled sessions | 6 |
Wider reading or practice | 50 |
Revision | 18 |
Follow-up work | 18 |
Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
J. Gruska (1996). Foundations of Computing. Thomson.
M. Sipser (1997). Introduction to the Theory of Computation. PWS.
N.D. Jones (1999). Computability and Complexity. MIT Press.
D. Cohen (1996). Introduction to Computer Theory. Wiley.
D. Harel (1992). Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing. Addison Wesley.
J. Hein (2002). Discrete Structures, Logic and Computability. Jones and Bartlett.
A.J.G. Hey (1996). Feynman Lectures on Computation. Addison Wesley.
A.K. Dewdney (2001). The (new) Turing Omnibus. Henry Holt.
J. Barwise and J. Etchemendy (1993). Turing's World. Stanford.
D.C. Kozen (1999). Automata and Computability. Springer.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
This module is assessed by a combination of problem sheets and a final assessment in the form of a written examination.Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Examination | 90% |
Problem Sheets | 10% |