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Final Comments

I have posted the final grades in SIS, so you should be able to see them soon (at least by tomorrow).

Comments on the final exam: [PDF]

Thanks everyone for a great semester, and enjoy your summer!

Conveying Complexity Highlights

This page: Conveying Complexity Highlights contains links to some of the most interesting, illuminating, and/or entertaining submissions for PS7. Enjoy watching the movies, listening to the music, and playing the games! (Alas, HTTP 1.1 does not provide any support for transmitting cakes, however.)






Final Exam Information

The final exam is Thursday, May 13, 9am-noon (as scheduled by the registrar).

It covers the whole course:

  • (in theory) anything in Problem Sets 1-7, Exams 1-2, Classes 1-28, Sipser Ch 1-5+7, Liskov’s talk, assigned readings
  • (in practice) emphasizes most important things that have been covered many times; slight emphasis on material since Exam 2

It will be similar to Exams 1 and 2 except that no resources may be used (no notes at all!).

I will be out of town Thursday [More...]

Class 28: Cakes and Theory in Jeopardy!

Class 28 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

Jeopardy slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

Thanks everyone for your contributions to the class!

Factorial is faster than Exponential!

Sorry, I was wrong for one of the Jeopardy answers today!

n! is not in O(2n).

It is easy to see that n! < nn, since all the numbers in the product to compute n! are less than (or equal to) n, but this doesn’t prove it is not in O(2n). For that, we can use Sterling’s approximation which gives a tight approximation of the value of n! as

which is definitely not in O(2n) since the base of [More...]

PS7 Submissions

Please submit your PS7 by posting a comment to this post.

Some reminders from the PS7 handout are below, see that handout for full details.

If you work in a team, your team should jointly post a single submission with all of your names on it.

Your post should include:

  • the names of everyone on the team
  • a description of your target audience
  • either the artifact itself or a link to it if it is hosted elsewhere
  • (optionally) a [More...]
  • Class 27: NP-Complete Desserts

    Class 27 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    In class, someone asked about languages known to be in BQP that are not known to be in NP. There is at least one such language, known as the Recursive Fourier Sampling problem. It is described in this paper: Quantum complexity theory by Ethan Bernstein and Umesh Vazirani, ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, 1993. [Full version: PDF] Section 8.4 of this paper describes the problem, but it [More...]

    Grades in Collab

    I have uploaded your scores on assignments into Collab so you can now verify that I have all your scores recorded correctly. If you notice any discrepancies, please let me know.

    Class 26: NP-Complete Entrees

    Class 26 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    Class 25: NP-Complete Appetizers

    Class 25 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    Since I badly messed up the reduction from SUBSET-SUM to KNAPSACK, and don’t see an obvious way to fix this, you can solve this question in place of Problem 5 on PS6. If you get an especially elegant and convincing answer that you would like to present in class Tuesday, send it to me by Monday afternoon.

    The reading handed out today is available here: The Status of the P versus NP Problem, [More...]

    Class 24: NP-Completeness

    Class 24 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    Problem Sets 6 and 7

    Problem Sets 6 and 7 are now posted. Problem Set 7 is quite different from all the other problem sets. Although it is not due until the last day of class, I strongly encourage everyone to read it now (only one page) and start thinking about what you want to do for it. You do not need to wait until you finish PS6 to start PS7 (and I would recommend starting on it earlier).

    Problem Set 6: [PDF] [More...]

    Exam 2 Comments

    Exam 2 Comments: [PDF]

    Class 23: P = NP?

    Class 23 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    Is the BLEND Problem Blender-Decidable?


    [Larger Image]
    [Hat tip to Michael Chen]

    Class 22: Introducing Complexity

    Class 22 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    Reading for this week

    The next reading assignment is Sipser, Chapter 7. (We are skipping Chapter 6.)

    Problem Set 6, originally scheduled to be due on April 20th on the syllabus, will now be due on April 27 (and will be posted soon).

    Exam 2

    Exam 2 is here: [PDF] [LaTeX Template]

    Exam 2 is due at the beginning of class Tuesday.

    Class 21: Undecidability in Theory and Practice

    Class 21 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    No Office Hours Tomorrow!

    I won’t be holding office hours tomorrow. Good luck with your exams!

    PS5 Comments

    Problem Set 5 Comments: [PDF]

    Class 20: Busy Beavers

    Class 20 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

    Thursday office hours

    Sorry, I will not be able to hold my usual Thursday morning this week. Instead, I will have office hours Thursday 11am-1pm.

    Student Council Technology Committee

    Kate McDowell is looking for students to join the Technology Committee of the Student Council, which she is chairing next year.

    They are looking for students with a passion for technology, and all majors and experience levels are welcome. Projects will include:

    • Managing www.uvastudentcouncil.com
    • Maintaining SpeakUpUVA
    • Livestreaming StudCo meetings on the web
    • Finding creative new ways to use technology

    To apply, visit http://www.uvastudentcouncil.com. Contact Kate McDowell (kam6zx) for details.

    Tuesday's Class, Preparing for Exam 2

    Exam 2 will be handed out Thursday, April 8 and due Tuesday, April 13. It will cover everything through today’s class (Barbara Liskov’s lecture), but emphasize things that have been covered since Exam 1: class 10-18, Problem sets 4 and 5.

    If you have any topics you would like me to review in class Tuesday, or questions you want me to go over, please post them here.

    As a separate game theory challenge, if exactly ONE student in [More...]