The theory of finite automata on finite stings, infinite strings, and trees has had a dis- tinguished history. First, automata were introduced to represent idealized switching circuits augmented by unit delays. This was the period of Shannon, McCullouch and Pitts, and Howard Aiken, ending about 1950. Then in the 1950s there was the work of Kleene on representable events, of Myhill and Nerode on finite coset congruence relations on strings, of Rabin and Scott on power set automata. In the 1960s, there was the work of Btichi on automata on infinite strings and the second order theory of one...
The theory of finite automata on finite stings, infinite strings, and trees has had a dis- tinguished history. First, automata were introduced to repr...
