These abstract machines are called automata.
Theoretical computer science or automata theory is the study of abstract machines and the computational problems related to these abstract machines. These rules and grammar and the process of converting these grammar and languages to machine format are the main objectives of this subject. Similarly, the languages that are used for computer programming purpose have some grammar to construct them. Grammar is the constructor for any language. That logic can be designed using mathematics. But, to design the compiler, some logic is needed. Therefore, the computers have a compiler that checks the syntax and acts as a converter between English-like statements to binary numbers and vice versa. However, the computer does not understand English-like statements. The characteristics of these types of languages are that they are similar to the English language and are easily understandable by the user. C, C++, and Java are some examples of programming languages. It is the same for communicating with a computer, wherein the user needs some language called the programming language. For every nation, there is some language to communicate such as Hindi, English, Bengali, etc. Language is a communication medium through which two persons communicate. Now what is formal language? Let us discuss what language is. We have a basic idea about the automata theory. The name of the subject is formal language and automata theory. Mathematics and electronics have jointly given birth to a new branch of engineering called ‘computer science and engineering’. Then, mathematics extends its hand for developing the logic. The circuit understands only binary command, which is impossible for a human user to memorize. The hardware of a computer is a complex electronics circuit. Electronics engineering came from electrical engineering. The engineering branch ‘electrical engineering’ stands on the base of physics. To get a clear idea about the automata theory, we need to travel back to the history of computer science.
Finite state automata put back how to#
In automata, we shall learn about how to design such machines. From the discussion, it is clear that the CPU performs machine operations internally. The output generated in the ‘0’ and ‘1’ format is converted to a user-understandable format and we get the output. It then performs some internal operation in its electronic circuit and generates the output in ‘0’ and ‘1’ format. However, in reality, the input is converted to ‘0’ and ‘1’ and assigned to the process for which the input was given. We are not concerned about the internal operation in the CPU, but only about the given input and the received output. A given input is processed in the CPU, and an output is generated. In a computer, all processes appear to be done automatically. The term ‘automata’ has some typical pronounceable symmetry with the term ‘automatic’.