ULC703

Theory of Computation

Introduction to Course and Evaluation Scheme

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Outline

• Theory of Computation

• Central areas in TOC

• History of TOC

• Syllabus

• Evaluation Scheme

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Theory of Computation (ToC)

Ý ToC tries to answer following questions:

• What are the mathematical properties of computer hardware and soft-
ware?
• Can we give rigorous mathematical definition of notions such as com-
putation and algorithms?
• What are the limitations of computers? Can everything be computed?
Ý Purpose: develop formal mathematical models of computations that
reflect the capabilities of real-world computers.
Ý Concentrates on determining:
• What can and can’t computed ?
• How efficiently (time and space requirements)?
• On which type of computational model?

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Central Areas in ToC

Theory of Computation has 3 central areas:

• Complexity Theory
• Computability Theory
• Automata Theory

Central areas ar connected by the question

What are the fundamental capabilities and limitations of computers?

Interpreted differently and the answer vary according to the interpretation.

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Complexity Theory

• What makes some problems computationally hard and other problems

easy ?
• Informally, a problem is called “easy” if it is efficiently solvable.
Ex-Sorting a sequence of, say, 100000000000 numbers
• On the other hand, a problem is called “hard”, if it can’t be solved
efficiently, or we don’t know whether it can be solved efficiently.
Ex-factoring a 300 digit integer into its prime factors.
• What can a computer do efficiently ? This study is called intractability.
• Tractable problems that can be solved by a computer using no more
time than some slowly growing function of the size of the input.

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Complexity Theory

• Cook(1969) separate
+ those problems that can be solved efficiently by computer from
+ those problems that can in principle be solved but in practice take so
much time that computers are useless for all but very small instances
of the problem.
• Researches have discovered an elegant scheme for classifying problems
according to their computational difficulty even if there exists no proof.
• Motivation: Classify problems according to their degree of “computa-
tional difficulty” by giving a rigorous proof that certain problems that
seems to be “hard” are really “hard”.

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Computability Theory

• What can a computer do at all? This study is called decidability.

• The problems that can be solved by computer are called decidable.
• In the 1930s, A. Turing studied an abstract machine that had all the
capabilities of today’s computers at least as far as in what they could
compute.
• Discovered that some of the fundamental mathematical problems can’t
be solved by a “computer”.
Example: Determining whether a mathematical statement is true or
false !!
• Turing’s conclusions apply not only to his abstract Turing machines but
to today’s real machines.
• The theoretical models that were proposed in order to understand solv-
able and unsolvable problems led to the development of real computers.
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Automata Theory

• Automata theory deals with the definitions and properties of dif-

ferent types of “mathematical models of computations”.
• Automata theory is the study of abstract computing devices or ma-
chines.
• Examples:
• Finite Automata are a useful model for many important kinds of
hardware and software. Used in text processing , compilers, and
hardware design.
• Context-Free Grammars: Used to define programming languages
and in Artificial Intelligence.
• Turing Machines: Simple abstract model of a “real” computer.
• Motivation: Determine the power of different computational models
or, which model can solve more problems than the other.
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Why this Course on TOC ?

• Fundamental capabilities and limitation of computers: core of the CS.

• Learn and analyze the mathematical properties of computer hard-
ware and software.
• Concepts essential to design new programming languages, compilers,
and algorithms for string searching, pattern matching, computer secu-
rity, AI etc.
• Helps you to learn problem solving skills: Theory contribute on how
to think, prove, argue, solve problems, express, and abstract.
• ToC simplifies the complex computers to an abstract and simple math-
ematical model, and helps us to understand them better.
• Rigorously analyzing capabilities and limitations of systems.
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ToC: History

Figure: History in brief

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ToC: History

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Syllabus

• Regular Languages and finite automata: Study of languages, regu-

lar expressions, finite automata, non-deterministic automata, and their
equivalence.
• Properties of Regular languages: Pumping Lemma, Decision prop-
erties of Regular languages, Applications.
• Context Free Grammar and Push Down Automata.
• Turing Machine: Variations of Turing Machines, combining Turing
machine, Universal Turing Machine, Post Machine, Chomsky Hierarchy,
Post correspondence problem, Halting problem, Turing decidability.

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Books

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Evaluation Scheme

S.No Evaluation Elements Weightage

1 MST 25
2 ESE 45
3 Sessional 30 (Quiz:15)

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