CS420 / CS620: Theory of Computation
UMass Boston, Fall 2025
Fri, 1 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0400
Hi Students,
Welcome to CS420 / CS620! We are looking forward to the semester.
To ensure a smooth start, please fill out this pre-class survey as soon as you can. This way we can address any concerns as soon as possible.
To access the survey, start by clicking the link and entering your full umb.edu email into the Google sign-in box, e.g.:
(If a sign-in box does not appear, sign out of other accounts first, or open the link in an incognito window.)
Please note that CS220 (discrete math) is a requirement of this course
and we assume that students are familiar with—
See you in the first class!
Last updated: Fri, 8 Aug 2025 13:59:17 -0400
Schedule (subject to change):
CS620: 1:00 - 2:15PM, Wheatley-Peters W01-0055 (Chang)
CS420: 2:30 - 3:45PM, Wheatley-Peters W01-0005 (Chang)
CS420: 4:00 - 5:15PM, Wheatley-Peters W01-0005 (DeBlois)
Readings: S = Sipser; HMU = Hopcroft, Motwani, Ullmann
# | Date | Topic | Reading | HW out |
1 | 9/3 Wed | Welcome to Theory of Computation | S0.2-0.4, HMU1.2-1.4 | |
2 | 9/8 Mon | Using and Proving Logical Statements | HMU1.2-1.4 | 1 |
no class | 9/9 Tue | Add/Drop Ends | ||
3 | 9/10 Wed | Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA) | S1.1 | |
4 | 9/15 Mon | Computing with DFAs | HMU2.2 | 2 |
5 | 9/17 Wed | Regular Languages | S1.1, HMU2.2 | |
6 | 9/22 Mon | Combining DFAs, Closed Ops | S1.1, HMU2.2 | |
7 | 9/24 Wed | Nondeterminism and NFAs | S1.2, HMU2.3,2.5 | |
8 | 9/29 Mon | Computing with NFAs | S1.2, HMU2.3,2.5 | |
9 | 10/1 Wed | NFA -> DFA | S1.2, HMU2.3 | |
10 | 10/6 Mon | Regular Expressions | S1.3 | |
11 | 10/8 Wed | Proof by Induction | S0.4,1.3, HMU1.4 | |
no class | 10/13 Mon | Indigenous Peoples Day | ||
12 | 10/15 Wed | Non-Regular Languages | S1.4 | |
13 | 10/20 Mon | Context-free Grammars (CFG) | S2.1, HMU5.1 | |
14 | 10/22 Wed | Pushdown Automata (PDA) | S2.2, HMU6.1 | |
15 | 10/27 Mon | CFGvsPDA, subCFLs, DPDAs, nonCFLs | S2.2-2.4, HMU6.1 | |
16 | 10/29 Wed | Turing Machines (TMs) | S3.1-3.3 | |
17 | 11/3 Mon | Nondeterministic TMs, TM configs | S3.2 | |
18 | 11/5 Wed | Decidability | S4.1 | |
19 | 11/10 Mon | Decidability for DFAs | S4.1 | |
no class | 11/11 Tue | Veterans Day | ||
20 | 11/12 Wed | Decidability for CFLs | S2.1,4.1 | |
21 | 11/17 Mon | Undecidability | S4.2,5.1, HMU9.3 | |
22 | 11/19 Wed | Reducibility | S4.2,5.1, HMU9.3 | |
no class | 11/20 Thu | Course P/F/Withdraw Deadline | ||
23 | 11/24 Mon | Mapping Reducibility | S5.3, HMU9.5 | |
24 | 11/26 Wed | Intro to Time Complexity | S7.1 | |
11/27 Thu | Thanksgiving Recess start | |||
11/30 Sun | Thanksgiving Recess end | |||
25 | 12/1 Mon | P | S7.2-3 | |
26 | 12/3 Wed | NP | S7.2-3 | |
27 | 12/8 Mon | NP-Completeness | S7.3-4 | |
28 | 12/10 Wed | The Cook-Levin Theorem | S7.4-5 | |
12/13 Sat | Study Period start | |||
12/14 Sun | Study Period end | |||
no class | 12/15 Mon | Final Exam Period | ||
no class | 12/17 Wed | Final Exam Period |