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.

This is a textbook for an introductory combinatorics course lasting 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 two editions, 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 to the talented and hardworking 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, Eulerian and Hamiltonian cycles, and planar graphs.The selected advanced topics are: Ramsey theory, pattern avoidance, the probabilistic method, partially ordered sets, the theory of designs (new to this edition), enumeration under group action (new to this edition), generating functions of labeled and unlabeled structures 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.The Solution Manual is available upon request for all instructors who adopt this book as a course text. Please send your request to sales@wspc.com.

This is a textbook for an introductory combinatorics course lasting 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 three editions, 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 to the talented and hardworking 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, Eulerian and Hamiltonian cycles, and planar graphs.New to this edition are the Quick Check exercises at the end of each section. In all, the new edition contains about 240 new exercises. Extra examples were added to some sections where readers asked for them.The selected advanced topics are: Ramsey theory, pattern avoidance, the probabilistic method, partially ordered sets, the theory of designs, enumeration under group action, generating functions of labeled and unlabeled structures and algorithms and complexity.The book encourages students to learn more combinatorics, provides them with a not only useful but also enjoyable and engaging reading.The Solution Manual is available upon request for all instructors who adopt this book as a course text. Please send your request to sales@wspc.com.The previous edition of this textbook has been adopted at various schools including UCLA, MIT, University of Michigan, and Swarthmore College. It was also translated into Korean.

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.

The first half of the book walks the reader through methods of counting, both direct elementary methods and the more advanced method of generating functions. Then, in the second half of the book, the reader learns how to apply these methods to fascinating objects, such as graphs, designs, random variables, partially ordered sets, and algorithms. In short, the first half emphasizes depth by discussing counting methods at length; the second half aims for breadth, by showing how numerous the applications of our methods are.New to this fifth edition of A Walk Through Combinatorics is the addition of Instant Check exercises — more than a hundred in total — which are located at the end of most subsections. As was the case for all previous editions, the exercises sometimes contain new material that was not discussed in the text, allowing instructors to spend more time on a given topic if they wish to do so. With a thorough introduction into enumeration and graph theory, as well as a chapter on permutation patterns (not often covered in other textbooks), this book is well suited for any undergraduate introductory combinatorics class.

This is a textbook for an introductory combinatorics course that can take up one or two semesters. An extensive list of exercises, ranging in difficulty from “routine” to “worthy of independent publication”, is included. In each section, there are also exercises that contain material not explicitly discussed in the text before, so as to provide instructors with extra choices if they want to shift the emphasis of their course. It goes without saying that the text covers the classic areas, i.e. combinatorial choice problems and graph theory. What is unusual, for an undergraduate textbook, is that the author has included a number of more elaborate concepts, such as Ramsey theory, the probabilistic method and — probably the first of its kind — pattern avoidance. While the reader can only skim the surface of these areas, the author believes that they are interesting enough to catch the attention of some students. 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.

Written by one of the leading authors and researchers in the field, this comprehensive modern text offers a strong focus on enumeration, a vitally important area in introductory combinatorics crucial for further study in the field. Miklós Bóna's text fills the gap between introductory textbooks in discrete mathematics and advanced graduate textbooks in enumerative combinatorics, and is one of the very first intermediate-level books to focus on enumerative combinatorics. The text can be used for an advanced undergraduate course by thoroughly covering the chapters in Part I on basic enumeration and by selecting a few special topics, or for an introductory graduate course by concentrating on the main areas of enumeration discussed in Part II. The special topics of Part III make the book suitable for a reading course. This text is part of the Walter Rudin Student Series in Advanced Mathematics.