Theory of Automata

Lecture # 01
 What does Theory of automata mean?

• The word “Theory” means that this subject is a more mathematical

subject and less practical.

• It is not like your other courses such as programming. However, this

subject is the foundation for many other practical subjects.

• Automata is the plural of the word Automaton which means “self-

acting”

• In general, this subject focuses on the theoretical aspects of computer

science.

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 Where does Theory of Automata come from?

 Theory of automata is a part of Theory of Computation.

 Theory of Computation is about how efficiently problems can be

solved using an algorithm.

 Theory of Computation is divided into three major branches:

Automata theory, Computability theory, and Complexity theory,

which are linked by the question: "What are the fundamental

capabilities and limitations of computers?”

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 Theory of Automata
 Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata,
as well as the computational problems that can be solved using
them.

Why study Theory of Automata

 Mainly, to know what kind of things can you really
 Compute
 how fast
 how much space does it take to do so.

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 What are Strings

• A String is formed by combining various symbols from an alphabet.

• Example:

If Σ = { 1, 0 } then

0, 1, 110011, …..

Similarly, If Σ = { a, b } then

a, b, abbbbbb, aaaabbbbb, …..

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 What is an EMPTY or NULL String

• A string with no symbol is denoted by (Small Greek letter Lambda) λ

or (Capital Greek letter Lambda) Λ. It is called an empty string or null
string.

• We will prefer Λ in this course. Please don’t confuse it with logical

operator ‘and’.

• One important thing to note is that we never allow Λ to be part of

alphabet of a language

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 What are Words

• Words are strings that belong to some specific language.

Thus, all words are strings, but vice versa is not true.

Example:

If Σ = { a } then a language L can be defined as

L = { a, aa, aaa,….} where L is a set of words of the language.

Also a, aa,… are the words of L but not ab.

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 Defining Alphabets – Guidelines

The following are three important rules for defining Alphabets for a

language:

• Should not contain empty symbol Λ

• Should be finite. Thus, the number of symbols are finite

• Should not be ambiguous

• Example: an alphabet may contain letters consisting of group of

symbols for example Σ1= {A, aA, bab, d}.

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 • Now consider an alphabet

Σ2= {A, Aa, bab, d} and a string AababA.

• This string can be factored in two different ways

– (Aa), (bab), (A)

– (A), (abab), (A)

Which shows that the second group cannot be identified as a string,

defined over Σ = {a, b}.

• This is due to ambiguity in the defined alphabet Σ2

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Why Ambiguity comes: A computer program first scans A as a letter belonging
to Σ2, while for the second letter; the computer program would not be able to
identify the symbols correctly.
• Ambiguity Rule:- The Alphabets should be defined in a way that letters
consisting of more than one symbols should not start with a letter, already
being used by some other letter.

Ambiguity Examples
• Σ1= {A, aA, bab, d}

• Σ2= {A, Aa, bab, d}

Σ1 is a valid alphabet while Σ2 is an in-valid alphabet.

Similarly,
• Σ1= {a, ab, ac}

• Σ2= {a, ba, ca}

In this case, Σ1 is a invalid alphabet while Σ2 is a valid alphabet.

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Length of Strings
• Definition:
The length of string s, denoted by |s|, is the number of letters/symbols in the
string.
• Example:
Σ={a,b}
s=aaabb
|s|=5
Word Length Example
Σ= {A, aA, bab, d}
s=AaAbabAd
Factoring=(A), (aA), (bab), (A), (d)
|s|=5
• One important point to note here is that aA has a length 1 and not 2.
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 Length of strings over n alphabets

• Formula: Number of strings of length ‘m’ defined over alphabet of ‘n’

letters is nm

Examples:

– The language of strings of length 2, defined over Σ={a,b}is L={aa,

ab, ba, bb} i.e. number of strings = 22

– The language of strings of length 3, defined over Σ={a,b} is

L={aaa, aab, aba, baa, abb, bab, bba, bbb} i.e. number of strings =

23

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 Reverse of a String
• Definition:
The reverse of a string s denoted by Rev(s) or sr, is obtained by
writing the letters of s in reverse order.
• Example:
If s=abc is a string defined over Σ={a,b,c}
then Rev(s) or sr = cba
• Example:
Σ= {A, aA, bab, d}
s=AaAbabAd
Rev(s)=dAbabaAA or
Rev(s)= dAbabAaA
Which one is correct?

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 How to form a Palindrome String?
• For strings of length =1:
– Take rev(s) where s is a string

– Example: if s = a then Rev(a) = a

– If s=b then Rev(b) = b

– Similarly, if Σ= {A, aA, bab, d} and

s=aA then rev(aA) = aA

• For strings of length >1:
– Take s Rev(s) where s is string

– Example: if s = ab then s Rev(s) = ab ba is a palindrome

– Similarly, if Σ= {A, abab, d}

s=Aabab then s Rev(s) = A abab abab A which is a palindrome

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 Length of Palindrome

• If the length of Palindrome is even then:

– s Rev(s) means length of string s is n and thus, there will be 2 n

strings.

– As we know that string is of length n and number of symbols in

the alphabet is 2, which shows that there are as many

palindromes of length 2n as there are the strings of length n i.e.

the required number of palindromes are 2n.

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 – If the length of Palindrome is odd then:

• How an odd length palindrome looks like:

• abc a cba

• Formula: s (symbol from alphabet) Rev(s)

• For odd length palindrome, string is of length n and symbol

from the alphabet which appears in the middle and has a
length 1 which is subtracted, plus the Rev(s) which is again of
length n.

• Thus it is 2n-1. For example: we have a palindrome abcacba.

So it is formed from string: s = abc a Rev(abc)
thus: n-1 +n = 2n -1

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• The no of palindromes in the odd case depends on the alphabets/symbols

in the Sigma. Suppose if number is 2 that is Σ= {a, b} then number of

palindromes of length 2n-1 with ‘a’ as a middle letter, will be 2 n-1.

• Similarly the number of palindromes of length 2n-1, with ‘ b ’ as middle

letter, will be 2n-1 as well. Hence the total number of palindromes of length

2n-1 will be 2n-1 + 2n-1 = 2 (2n-1)= 2n .

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 Defining Languages
 The languages can be defined in different ways , such as

Descriptive definition,

Recursive definition,

using Regular Expressions(RE) and

using Finite Automaton(FA) etc.

 Descriptive definition of language:

The language is defined, describing the conditions imposed on its words

 Example:

The language L of strings of odd length, defined over Σ={a}, can be written as

 Example:

The language L of strings that does not start with a, defined over Σ={a,b,c}, can be
written as L={b, c, ba, bb, bc, ca, cb, cc, …}

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  Example:

The language L of strings of length 2, defined over Σ={0,1,2}, can

be written as
L={00, 01, 02,10, 11,12,20,21,22}
 Example:

The language L of strings ending in 0, defined over Σ ={0,1}, can

be written as
L={0,00,10,000,010,100,110,…}
 Example:

The language EQUAL, of strings with number of a’s equal to

number of b’s, defined over Σ={a,b}, can be written as
{Λ ,ab, aabb, abab, baba, abba, …}

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  Example:

The language EVEN-EVEN, of strings with even number of a’s and

even number of b’s, defined over Σ={a,b}, can be written as
{Λ, aa, bb, aabb, abab, abba, baab, baba, bbaa…}
 Example:

The language {anbn}, of strings defined over Σ={a,b}, as {anbn :

n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{ab, aabb, aaabbb,aaaabbbb,…}
 Example:

The language {anbn an}, of strings defined over Σ={a,b}, as {anbn an :

n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{aba, aabbaa, aaabbbaaa,aaaabbbbaaaa,…}

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  Example:

The language FACTORIAL, of strings defined over Σ={a}, as {an! :

n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{a, aa, aaa,aaaa,…}
It is to be noted that the language FACTORIAL can be defined over any
single letter alphabet.
 Example:

The language DOUBLEFACTORIAL, of strings defined over Σ={a, b},

as {an! bn! : n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{ab, aabb, aaabbb, aaaaaabbbbbb,…}
 Example:

The language SQUARE, of strings defined over Σ={a}, as {an2 :

n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{a, aaaa, aaaaaaaaa,…}

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  Example:

The language DOUBLESQUARE, of strings defined over Σ={a,b}, as

{an2 bn2 : n=1,2,3,…}, can be written as
{ab, aaaabbbb, aaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbb,…}
 Example:

The language PRIME, of strings defined over Σ={a}, as

{ap : p is prime}, can be written as
{aa,aaa,aaaaa,aaaaaaa,aaaaaaaaaaa…}

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 Lecture 1 Summary
• Definition of the word Automata
• Types of languages, empty/Null String, Alphabets, words, length
of strings, Palindromes
• How to form palindromes of even and odd length.

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