In computer science, automatahelp us to understand various things, such as the underlying processes of complex systems, by presenting us with a much simpler but abstract representation of states and transitions . This can be either a graph structure (left) or a transition table (right). By tracing the connections between the states, we can traverse the automaton. A sequence of transitions can be described as a word , and all possible words form a language. We know from experience that all languages use an alphabet, and this is no different here. The alphabet consists of all characters that represent a transition in the automaton. After all, every automaton has an initial state (q0) and a final state (q2). If a word causes an automaton to end in its final state, we know that the word is part of the accepted language.
The widget below provides you with tools to create and simulate different types of automata. For now, we will focus on the following transition table:
δ | a | b | c |
q1 | q2 | q2 | q3 |
q2 | q1 | q3 | q2 |
q3 | q3 | q2 | q3 |
Select a word from the accepted language of the machine.
aaa
bcc
bba
cba
Thank you for testing the Explorable!