MATH 114C

Computability Theory

Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 110A or 131A or Philosophy 135. Effectively calculable, Turing computable, and recursive functions; Church/Turing thesis. Normal form theorem; universal functions; unsolvability and undecidability results. Recursive and recursively enumerable sets; relative recursiveness, polynomial-time computability. Arithmetical hierarchy. P/NP or letter grading.

Units: 4.0
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Overall Rating 4.0
Easiness 2.0/ 5
Clarity 5.0/ 5
Workload 2.0/ 5
Helpfulness 5.0/ 5
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - WHOO! Alrighty, so Math 114C, being a C class, is definitely a more obscured class in the Math Department. The topic is Computability/Recursion Theory, so you're going to be learning about the complex theory behind many famous mathematicians, namely Kurt Godel and Alan Turing. It's extremely rewarding to have examined this theory in depth, as well. However, Professor Moschovakis gives you advance warning that the subject material is abstract and difficult - the notes will come off looking like some devil-child of cuneiform and hieroglyphs. I think more than half our class faded off from the beginning of the quarter to the end. The homework is not easy - there is no solutions manual, and the problems require you to really think through what you have learned. The exams are fair, though on the challenging side. There are bonus points, so you can afford to miss a couple of parts of a tough question and still make it through. The people that stayed in the class were pretty much all honors students or students that took rigorous math/compsci schedules, so the scores were high. Hopefully we made it out with a similar curve to what's shown in this page. Professor Moschovakis himself is a great lecturer and an extremely knowledgeable professor. He was really helpful during office hours to tackle the homework, and so was our TA. His handwriting was a bit messy, and he didn't write much on the board during lecture. However, what he said made it easier to understand the dense notation and material in the notes he put up (I mean, he is 81 as of writing). It was really unfortunate that he had to be out during the final four weeks (we had guest lecturers in his stead), as he had to see a doctor to take care of his back. Though I'm unsure of whether he'll teach again, I truly hope for the best regarding his health. And also, I hope all my bright classmates succeeded! Math 114C is NOT a class that you'll expect to get by via sitting around. You will have to put forth your absolute best, but in the end, it is truly rewarding, especially upon studying from such an established professor.
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