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    VatsalyaMathur
    This document introduces an automata theory course, explaining that knowledge of automata is useful in many computer science jobs and applications. It describes how regular expressions, finite automata, context-free grammars and Turing machines will be covered to understand formal languages and the limits of computation. The course aims to provide skills in abstract modeling, discrete systems, and recognizing what problems cannot be solved by algorithms.

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    1 Intro

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    VatsalyaMathur
    20 views11 pages
    This document introduces an automata theory course, explaining that knowledge of automata is useful in many computer science jobs and applications. It describes how regular expressions, finite automata, context-free grammars and Turing machines will be covered to understand formal languages and the limits of computation. The course aims to provide skills in abstract modeling, discrete systems, and recognizing what problems cannot be solved by algorithms.

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    This document introduces an automata theory course, explaining that knowledge of automata is useful in many computer science jobs and applications. It describes how regular expressions, finite automata, context-free grammars and Turing machines will be covered to understand formal languages and the limits of computation. The course aims to provide skills in abstract modeling, discrete systems, and recognizing what problems cannot be solved by algorithms.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    20 views11 pages

    1 Intro

    Uploaded by

    VatsalyaMathur
    This document introduces an automata theory course, explaining that knowledge of automata is useful in many computer science jobs and applications. It describes how regular expressions, finite automata, context-free grammars and Turing machines will be covered to understand formal languages and the limits of computation. The course aims to provide skills in abstract modeling, discrete systems, and recognizing what problems cannot be solved by algorithms.

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    You are on page 1of 11

    Welcome to the Stanford Automata Theory Course

    Why Study Automata? What the Course is About

    Why Study Automata?


    A survey of Stanford grads 5 years out asked which of their courses did they use in their job. Basics like intro-programming took the top spots, of course. But among optional courses, CS154 stood remarkably high.
    3X the score for AI, for example.
    2

    How Could That Be?


    Regular expressions are used in many systems.
    E.g., UNIX a.*b. E.g., DTDs describe XML tags with a RE format like person (name, addr, child*).

    Finite automata model protocols, electronic circuits.


    3

    How? (2)
    Context-free grammars are used to describe the syntax of essentially every programming language.
    Not to forget their important role in describing natural languages.

    And DTDs taken as a whole, are really CFGs.


    4

    How? (3)
    When developing solutions to real problems, we often confront the limitations of what software can do.
    Undecidable things no program whatever can do it. Intractable things there are programs, but no fast programs.

    Automata theory gives you the tools.


    5

    Other Good Stuff


    Well learn how to deal formally with discrete systems.
    Proofs: You never really prove a program correct, but you need to be thinking of why a tricky technique really works.

    Well gain experience with abstract models and constructions.


    Models layered software architectures.
    6

    Automata Theory Gateway Drug


    This theory has attracted people of a mathematical bent to CS, to the betterment of all.
    Ken Thompson before UNIX was working on compiling regular expressions. Jim Gray thesis was automata theory before he got into database systems and made fundamental contributions there.
    7

    Course Outline
    Regular Languages and their descriptors:
    Finite automata, nondeterministic finite automata, regular expressions. Algorithms to decide questions about regular languages, e.g., is it empty? Closure properties of regular languages.

    Course Outline (2)


    Context-free languages and their descriptors:
    Context-free grammars, pushdown automata. Decision and closure properties.

    Course Outline (3)


    Recursive and recursively enumerable languages.
    Turing machines, decidability of problems. The limit of what can be computed.

    Intractable problems.
    Problems that (appear to) require exponential time. NP-completeness and beyond.
    10

    Text (Not Required)


    Hopcroft, Motwani, Ullman, Automata
    3rd Edition. Course covers essentially the entire book.

    Theory, Languages, and Computation

    11

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