Principles and Techniques in Combinatorics


Book Description

A textbook suitable for undergraduate courses. The materials are presented very explicitly so that students will find it very easy to read. A wide range of examples, about 500 combinatorial problems taken from various mathematical competitions and exercises are also included.




Principles And Techniques In Combinatorics - Solutions Manual


Book Description

The solutions to each problem are written from a first principles approach, which would further augment the understanding of the important and recurring concepts in each chapter. Moreover, the solutions are written in a relatively self-contained manner, with very little knowledge of undergraduate mathematics assumed. In that regard, the solutions manual appeals to a wide range of readers, from secondary school and junior college students, undergraduates, to teachers and professors.




Combinatorics


Book Description

Combinatorics, Second Edition is a well-rounded, general introduction to the subjects of enumerative, bijective, and algebraic combinatorics. The textbook emphasizes bijective proofs, which provide elegant solutions to counting problems by setting up one-to-one correspondences between two sets of combinatorial objects. The author has written the textbook to be accessible to readers without any prior background in abstract algebra or combinatorics. Part I of the second edition develops an array of mathematical tools to solve counting problems: basic counting rules, recursions, inclusion-exclusion techniques, generating functions, bijective proofs, and linear algebraic methods. These tools are used to analyze combinatorial structures such as words, permutations, subsets, functions, graphs, trees, lattice paths, and much more. Part II cover topics in algebraic combinatorics including group actions, permutation statistics, symmetric functions, and tableau combinatorics. This edition provides greater coverage of the use of ordinary and exponential generating functions as a problem-solving tool. Along with two new chapters, several new sections, and improved exposition throughout, the textbook is brimming with many examples and exercises of various levels of difficulty.




Combinatorics


Book Description

Combinatorics is a subject of increasing importance because of its links with computer science, statistics, and algebra. This textbook stresses common techniques (such as generating functions and recursive construction) that underlie the great variety of subject matter, and the fact that a constructive or algorithmic proof is more valuable than an existence proof. The author emphasizes techniques as well as topics and includes many algorithms described in simple terms. The text should provide essential background for students in all parts of discrete mathematics.




A Course in Combinatorics


Book Description

This is the second edition of a popular book on combinatorics, a subject dealing with ways of arranging and distributing objects, and which involves ideas from geometry, algebra and analysis. The breadth of the theory is matched by that of its applications, which include topics as diverse as codes, circuit design and algorithm complexity. It has thus become essential for workers in many scientific fields to have some familiarity with the subject. The authors have tried to be as comprehensive as possible, dealing in a unified manner with, for example, graph theory, extremal problems, designs, colorings and codes. The depth and breadth of the coverage make the book a unique guide to the whole of the subject. The book is ideal for courses on combinatorical mathematics at the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level. Working mathematicians and scientists will also find it a valuable introduction and reference.




Counting: The Art of Enumerative Combinatorics


Book Description

This book provides an introduction to discrete mathematics. At the end of the book the reader should be able to answer counting questions such as: How many ways are there to stack n poker chips, each of which can be red, white, blue, or green, such that each red chip is adjacent to at least 1 green chip? The book can be used as a textbook for a semester course at the sophomore level. The first five chapters can also serve as a basis for a graduate course for in-service teachers.




Bijective Combinatorics


Book Description

Bijective proofs are some of the most elegant and powerful techniques in all of mathematics. Suitable for readers without prior background in algebra or combinatorics, Bijective Combinatorics presents a general introduction to enumerative and algebraic combinatorics that emphasizes bijective methods.The text systematically develops the mathematical




A Path to Combinatorics for Undergraduates


Book Description

This unique approach to combinatorics is centered around unconventional, essay-type combinatorial examples, followed by a number of carefully selected, challenging problems and extensive discussions of their solutions. Topics encompass permutations and combinations, binomial coefficients and their applications, bijections, inclusions and exclusions, and generating functions. Each chapter features fully-worked problems, including many from Olympiads and other competitions, as well as a number of problems original to the authors; at the end of each chapter are further exercises to reinforce understanding, encourage creativity, and build a repertory of problem-solving techniques. The authors' previous text, "102 Combinatorial Problems," makes a fine companion volume to the present work, which is ideal for Olympiad participants and coaches, advanced high school students, undergraduates, and college instructors. The book's unusual problems and examples will interest seasoned mathematicians as well. "A Path to Combinatorics for Undergraduates" is a lively introduction not only to combinatorics, but to mathematical ingenuity, rigor, and the joy of solving puzzles.




A Walk Through Combinatorics


Book Description

This is a textbook for an introductory combinatorics course that can take up one or two semesters. An extensive list of problems, ranging from routine exercises to research questions, is included. In each section, there are also exercises that contain material not explicitly discussed in the preceding text, so as to provide instructors with extra choices if they want to shift the emphasis of their course. Just as with the first edition, the new edition walks the reader through the classic parts of combinatorial enumeration and graph theory, while also discussing some recent progress in the area: on the one hand, providing material that will help students learn the basic techniques, and on the other hand, showing that some questions at the forefront of research are comprehensible and accessible for the talented and hard-working undergraduate. The basic topics discussed are: the twelvefold way, cycles in permutations, the formula of inclusion and exclusion, the notion of graphs and trees, matchings and Eulerian and Hamiltonian cycles. The selected advanced topics are: Ramsey theory, pattern avoidance, the probabilistic method, partially ordered sets, and algorithms and complexity. As the goal of the book is to encourage students to learn more combinatorics, every effort has been made to provide them with a not only useful, but also enjoyable and engaging reading.




Constructive Combinatorics


Book Description

The notes that eventually became this book were written between 1977 and 1985 for the course called Constructive Combinatorics at the University of Minnesota. This is a one-quarter (10 week) course for upper level undergraduate students. The class usually consists of mathematics and computer science majors, with an occasional engineering student. Several graduate students in computer science also attend. At Minnesota, Constructive Combinatorics is the third quarter of a three quarter sequence. The fIrst quarter, Enumerative Combinatorics, is at the level of the texts by Bogart [Bo], Brualdi [Br], Liu [Li] or Tucker [Tu] and is a prerequisite for this course. The second quarter, Graph Theory and Optimization, is not a prerequisite. We assume that the students are familiar with the techniques of enumeration: basic counting principles, generating functions and inclusion/exclusion. This course evolved from a course on combinatorial algorithms. That course contained a mixture of graph algorithms, optimization and listing algorithms. The computer assignments generally consisted of testing algorithms on examples. While we felt that such material was useful and not without mathematical content, we did not think that the course had a coherent mathematical focus. Furthermore, much of it was being taught, or could have been taught, elsewhere. Graph algorithms and optimization, for instance, were inserted into the graph theory course where they naturally belonged. The computer science department already taught some of the material: the simpler algorithms in a discrete mathematics course; effIciency of algorithms in a more advanced course.