计算机科学导论 (14).pptVIP

* In computer science, we can say that, all problems can be usually classified into two types: solvable problems and unsolvable problems. The solvable problems also contains two categories: polynomial problems and non-polynomial problems (Figure 14.11). Solvable problems Figure 14.11 Taxonomy of problems * Solvable problems They are a lot of problems which can’t be solved by a computer. Halting problem is one of the most typical problems that cannot be solved by a computer. However, we are not interested in those problems. On the contrary, we usually want to care for the problems that can be solved by a computer. And we want to know the run time of a program, and the memory it needs. In the following section, we discuss the complexity of the solvable problems. Complexity of solvable problems As we all know, if we want to know the complexity of a solvable problem, we can compute the number of operations during execution of the program. But it is difficult to compute the run time exactly because of several reasons, for instance, the number of inputs，or the high speed of computers. In general, the big-O notation is used to express the efficiency of an algorithm. Here we will use the idea of this notation but we will not delve into its formal definition and calculation. In big-O notation, the number of operations is given as a function of the number of inputs. The notation O(nlogn) means a program does nlogn operations for n inputs, while the notation O(n3) means a program does n3 operations for n inputs. * * 14-1 The Turing Machine 14-2 Halting Problem 14-3 Solvable Problems 14-4 References and Recommended Reading 14-5 Summary 14-6 Practice Set OUTLINE * Understand the architecture of Turing machine. Understand Hopcroft and Ullman formally how to define a Turing machine as a 7-tuple . Understand the Church-Turing thesis. After reading this chapter, you are supposed tobe able to : OBJECTIVES Understand halting problem, polynomial prob