Aspects of Combinatorics
A Wide-ranging Introduction

Combinatorics is a broad and important area of mathematics, and this textbook provides the beginner with the ideal introduction to many of the different aspects of the subject.

Victor Bryant (Author)

9780521429979, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 January 1993

276 pages
23.5 x 19.1 x 1.5 cm, 0.48 kg

"...makes excellent reading for undergraduates who have already taken an introductory discrete mathematics course which covered counting methods, number theory, graph theory, and proof writing at an elementary level...I highly recommmend Aspects of Combinatorics as a great source of problems and examples that could supplement many upper division mathematics classes." Arthur Benjamin, SIAM Newsletter

Combinatorics is a broad and important area of mathematics, and this textbook provides the beginner with the ideal introduction to many of the different aspects of the subject. By building up from the basics, and demonstrating the relationships between the various branches of combinatorics, Victor Bryant provides a readable text that presents its results in a straightforward way. Numerous examples and exercises, including hints and solutions, are included throughout and serve to lead the reader to some of the deeper results of the subject, many of which are usually excluded from elementary texts. This is an excellent textbook, by an experienced author, for introductory courses in combinatorics and graph theory.

1. The binomial coefficients
2. How many trees?
3. The marriage theorem
4. Three basic principles
5. Latin squares
6. The first theorem of graph theory
7. Edge-colourings
8. Harems and tournaments
9. Minimax theorems
10. Recurrence
11. Vertex-colourings
12. Rook polynomials
13. Planar graphs
14. Map-colourings
15. Designs and codes
16. Ramsey theory
Hints to exercises
Answers to exercises
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Combinatorics & graph theory [PBV]