Difference between revisions of "Automata theory"

Revision as of 11:49, 5 June 2015

Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them.

It is a theory in theoretical computer science, under discrete mathematics.

Automata comes from the Greek word αὐτόματα meaning "self-acting".

The finite state machine is a well-known variety of automaton.

This automaton consists of states, and transitions.
As the automaton sees a symbol of input, it makes a transition (or jump) to another state, according to its transition function
- Which takes the current state and the recent symbol as its inputs.

Automata theory is also closely related to formal language theory.

An automaton is a finite representation of a formal language that may be an infinite set.

Automata are often classified by the class of formal languages they are able to recognize.

Automata play a major role in theory of computation, compiler design, artificial intelligence, parsing and formal verification.