Honors Theory of Computation, G22.3350.001, Spring 2002
=======================================================
		FIRST AND LAST HANDOUT

Dear Class:
	Welcome!  I look forward to teaching and working through some 
	exciting material that lies at the core of Computer Science.

	I apologize for missing the first class as I must be out of town
	for a conference.  But Professor Dodis will give you an excellent
	first lecture I am sure.  He taught this course last Spring.

	This is the only paper handout you will get in this class, as we
	rely on the web for disemination of administrative information.
	There are two things you need to do immediately:

	(1) Visit our class homepage and bookmark it:
		http://cs.nyu.edu/~yap/classes/theory/
	    Please familiarize yourself with the structure of that page.

	(2) Join the class mailing list by following instructions in the
	    class homepage.  I hope the list will be up by the first week
	    of class (it was not when I checked on Jan 18).

	Feel free to give me a call (998-3115) or visit my office (WWH 416)
	for a chat!  I hope to make myself as available as possible.
	
	--Chee Yap, Jan 18, 2002
====================================================================
COURSE CONTENTS AND STRUCTURE 

Our main text book will be my manuscript
	"Introduction to Complexity Classes"
which you can download from the class page.  Other references are noted
in the class page.

In the first 3 weeks, we briefly treat the basic elements of Formal
Language Theory, Computability and Recursive Function Theory.
These are very classical material.  The main focus of this course, however,
is "modern" complexity theory, including an introduction to some
state-of-art topics:

	basic relation among complexity classes
	reducibility
	completeness theory
	complexity hierarchies
	randomized computation
	Kolmogorov complexity
	Quantum computation

There will be weekly homeworks -- you are encouraged to get in groups of
two or three to work together.  But any work you hand in MUST represent
your own work -- you cannot share write-ups from your discussion group.  
Academic integrity includes citing any sources as appropriate.
====================================================================