Question

NFA, in its name, has 'non-deterministic' because of:

a. The result is undetermined
b. The state to be transited next is non-deterministic
c. The choice of the path is non-deterministic
d. All of the mentioned

Answer 1

An NFA is called 'non-deterministic' because there can be multiple possible next states that it can transition to, or multiple paths that it can take through its state transitions when processing input symbols.

Step-by-step explanation:

The term Non-Deterministic Finite Automaton (NFA) refers to a type of finite state machine where, for certain combinations of state and input symbol, the next state to transition to can be chosen from multiple possibilities. This inherent non-determinism of the machine is why it has 'non-deterministic' in its name, particularly because:

• The state to be transited next is non-deterministic.
• The choice of the path through the state transitions can be non-deterministic.
• Effectively, both b. and c. mentioned above contribute to the overall non-determinism of the NFA.

However, it's crucial to understand that the non-determinism of an NFA does not make the result of the computation undetermined. Given a string, an NFA either accepts it or rejects it, but there might be multiple paths through the automaton that lead to the final decision.

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