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CS420 / CS620: Theory of Computation🔗

UMass Boston, Fall 2025

image 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—and/or will review/learn on their own if necessary—all the topics and concepts from that course.

See you in the first class!

image

Last updated: Sat, 29 Nov 2025 17:33:40 -0500

Schedule (subject to change):

Lectures meet Monday and Wednesday at:

  • 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

Intro to Theory of Computation [slides]

S0.2-0.4, HMU1.2-1.4

0

2

9/8 Mon

Using and Proving Logical Statements [slides]

HMU1.2-1.4

1

no class

9/9 Tue

Add/Drop Ends

3

9/10 Wed

Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA) [slides]

S1.1

4

9/15 Mon

Computing with DFAs [slides]

HMU2.2

2

5

9/17 Wed

Regular Languages [slides]

S1.1, HMU2.2

6

9/22 Mon

Combining DFAs, Closed Ops [slides]

S1.1, HMU2.2

3

7

9/24 Wed

Nondeterminism and NFAs [slides]

S1.2, HMU2.3,2.5

8

9/29 Mon

Computing with NFAs [slides]

S1.2, HMU2.3,2.5

4

9

10/1 Wed

NFA -> DFA [slides]

S1.2, HMU2.3

10

10/6 Mon

Regular Expressions [slides]

S1.3

5

11

10/8 Wed

Proof by Induction [slides]

S0.4,1.3, HMU1.4

no class

10/13 Mon

Indigenous Peoples Day

12

10/15 Wed

Non-Regular Languages [slides]

S1.4

6

13

10/20 Mon

Context-free Grammars (CFG) [slides]

S2.1, HMU5.1

7

14

10/22 Wed

Pushdown Automata (PDA) [slides]

S2.2, HMU6.1

15

10/27 Mon

CFGvsPDA, subCFLs, DPDAs, nonCFLs [slides]

S2.2-2.4, HMU6.1

8

16

10/29 Wed

Turing Machines (TMs) [slides]

S3.1-3.3

17

11/3 Mon

Multi-tape, Nondeterministic TMs [slides]

S3.2

9

18

11/5 Wed

Decidability [slides]

S4.1

19

11/10 Mon

Decidability for Regular Langs [slides]

S4.1

10

no class

11/11 Tue

Veterans Day

20

11/12 Wed

Decidability for CFLs [slides]

S2.1,4.1

21

11/17 Mon

Undecidability [slides]

S4.2,5.1, HMU9.3

11

22

11/19 Wed

Reducibility [slides]

S4.2,5.1, HMU9.3

no class

11/20 Thu

Course P/F/Withdraw Deadline

23

11/24 Mon

Mapping Reducibility [slides]

S5.3, HMU9.5

12

24

11/26 Wed

Intro to Time Complexity [slides]

S7.1

11/27 Thu

Thanksgiving Recess start

11/30 Sun

Thanksgiving Recess end

25

12/1 Mon

P [slides]

S7.2-3

26

12/3 Wed

NP

S7.2-3

13

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

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