UMBC CMSC451-01, Automata Theory, Spring 2023

News Archive

• [Thu May 11 14:45 2023]   It's a TRAP!
  

• [Mon May 08 09:20 2023]   Prof. Chang's office hours on Thursday, May 11th shifted to 2:30pm – 4pm (instead of 3:00pm - 4:30pm).

• [Thu May 04 23:10 2023]   Homework 12 posted. Due Thu 05/11/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Apr 27 17:20 2023]   Homework 11 posted. Due Thu 05/04/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Apr 20 22:10 2023]   Fixed small typo in Homework 10. Now version 1.1.

• [Tue Apr 25 14:40 2023]   Here's the final Perl program shown in class that prints itself. You may have to change the first line depending on where Perl lives on your system. The earlier versions are in this directory. #!/usr/bin/perl $B = '$slash = "\x5C" ; $C = $B ; $C =~ s/\'/$slash\'/g ; print "#!/usr/bin/perl\n\n" ; print "\$B = \'$C\' ;\n" ; print "$B\n" ;' ; $slash = "\x5C" ; $C = $B ; $C =~ s/'/$slash'/g ; print "#!/usr/bin/perl\n\n" ; print "\$B = '$C' ;\n" ; print "$B\n" ;

• [Thu Apr 20 22:10 2023]   Homework 10 posted. Due Thu 04/27/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Apr 20 15:05 2023]   Seriously, high school teachers have worksheets for their students to compare Kung Fu Panda with Oedipus Rex.

  Oedipus Rex is an ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Oedipus hears from the oracle at Dephi that he is destined to kill his father and marry his own mother. He runs away from his parents to avoid this fate, not knowing that they are his adopted parents. By doing so, Oedipus runs in to his real father, King Laius, and kills him and marries the queen (his real mother).

  In Kung Fu Panda, Master Oogway predicts that the villain Tai Lung (the snow leopard) will escape prison and wreak havoc. The good guys send Zeng (the goose) to make the prison more secure, but in doing so, one of Zeng's feathers falls into Tai Lung's cell and allows him to pick the lock and escape.

  In both stories, the attempt to avoid the fate predicted by an oracle is the very act that causes the prophecy to come true ... but, we are not talking about those oracles. Our oracles are just sets that answer membership queries.

• [Tue Apr 18 14:35 2023]   Updated Homework 9, to clarify that Question 3 asks you to show that the language C is undecidable.

• [Thu Apr 13 17:15 2023]   Homework 9 posted. Due Thu 04/20/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Apr 06 23:35 2023]   Homework 8 posted. Due Thu 04/13/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Mar 30 21:00 2023]   Homework 7 posted. Due Thu 04/06/23   [Submit]

• [Mon Mar 27 21:30 2023]   Prof. Chang's office hours on Wednesday, March 29 has moved to the morning: 10am – 11:30am (originally 1:30pm – 3pm).

• [Thu Mar 09 22:45 2023]   Homework 6 posted. Due Thu 03/16/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Mar 02 22:10 2023]   Homework 5 posted. Due Thu 03/09/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Mar 02 22:10 2023]   Due to errors in the original Homework 4, there will not be a late penalty if you submit by Friday 11:59pm. Late penalties for submissions after Friday remain the same.

• [Thu Feb 23 21:30 2023]   Updated Homework 4. Please make sure to use Version 2. Note that Question #2 is changed completely and the typo in 4(e) was fixed.

• [Thu Feb 23 21:30 2023]   Homework 4 posted. Due Thu 03/02/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Feb 16 21:50 2023]   Homework 3 posted. Due Thu 02/23/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Feb 09 00:20 2023]   Homework 2 posted. Due Thu 02/16/23   [Submit]

• [Thu Feb 02 16:50 2023]   Prof. Chang's office hours on Tuesday Feb 14 moved to 3:30pm - 5pm (from 3pm - 4:30pm).

• [Wed Feb 01 16:35 2023]   Fixed a couple of errors in Homework 1. Please make sure you are using v1.1.

• [Wed Feb 01 11:05 2023]   Homework 1 posted. Due Thu 02/09/23   [Submit]

• [Tue Jan 31 15:45 2023]   If you want to further explore Gödel's Theorem, Nagel & Neuman's book is a fairly accessible (allegedly "non-technical") treatment.

• [Tue Jan 31 15:15 2023]   Slides and recorded lectures will be posted on Google Drive after class in their respective folders:

  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pj38Pzm3OY5gDIxwyxQUYup05hG0B02r

  I plan to use the screen as a large scrolling white board where my markers never run dry. So, the slides will not be complete until after class.

• [Mon Jan 30 14:00 2023]   Syllabus & schedule also availalbe in PDF.

• [Mon Jan 30 12:45 2023]   Prof. Chang's office hours on Thursday Feb 9 moved to 4:30pm - 6pm.

• [Fri Jan 27 16:00 2023]   Web page up.