Lecture 3

Learning objectives

After this class, you should be able to:

1. Define terms from the theory of computing, such as: language, string, alphabet, concatenation, reverse, string length, empty string, substring, prefix, suffix, sentence, star-closure, positive closure, complement of a language, grammar, variables, terminal symbols, start variable, productions, derivation, sentential form, equivalence of grammars.
2. Explain what an automaton is.
3. Given a grammar, explain the language that it generates.
4. Given a grammar and a string, show the derivation of that string from the grammar.
5. Given the description of a language, create a grammar for it and prove that your answer is correct.
6. Give some application areas for the theory of computing.

Reading assignment

1. Sections 1.2 and 1.3.
2. Lecture 3 slides on Blackboard.

Exercises and review questions

• Exercises and review questions on current lecture's material
  1. Section 1.2, exercise #4.
  2. Section 1.2, exercise #10.
  3. Section 1.2, exercise #11.
  4. Section 1.2, exercise #12.
  5. Section 1.2, exercise #14 a, b.
  6. Section 1.3, exercise #1.

• Questions on next lecture's material
  1. None.

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Last modified: 29 Dec 2013