A First Course in Discrete Mathematics (Springer Undergraduate Mathematics Series)
by Ian Anderson
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (12 December, 2000)
list price: $39.95 -- our price: $34.75
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Reviews (1)

Concise and non-trivial
Discrete maths underpins most of modern cryptography and information theory. Quite different from continuum maths like calculus that a student might already be familiar with. Here, Anderson provides us with a concise introduction to the subject, that assumes no prior coursework in this field.

He manages in a short text to cover a wide range of reasonably advanced issues, like the finite projective planes and magic squares. In keeping with many of the Springer maths texts, the level of analysis is not trivial. (Not a Dummy's book!) Still, with careful attention, a competent student should be able to assimilate these ideas. ... Read more

Isbn: 1852332360
Sales Rank: 965086
Subjects:  1. Computer science    2. Discrete Mathematics    3. Discrete Mathematics (Computer Science)    4. Mathematics    5. Reference    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Combinatorial Mathematics    8. Designs    9. Enumeration    10. Graph Theory    11. Latin Squares    12. Mathematics / Discrete Mathematics   

Discrete Mathematics
by Laszlo Lovasz, Jozsef Pelikan, Katalin L. Vesztergombi
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (27 January, 2003)
list price: $39.95 -- our price: $34.71
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If You're Brilliant and Don't Mind a Lack of Rigor, Try It.
Ouch.I definitely made a mistake trying this book.From what I can see, the only set of people who might find this book useful would be genius non-Math-types.My handy-dandy way of explaining this is by mapping the universe of all possible readers onto a set of x-y axes.Let the x axis run from "non-Math-types" up through "Math-types."Let they y axis go from "non-geniuses" up through "geniuses:"

- Quadrant I:if you're a genius Math-type, you'll be aghast at the lack of rigor in the proofs and at all the steps missing from the few proofs given.But, you might be able to work through the material on your own.My guess, though, is that you'll throw the book across the room in disgust, instead.

- Quadrant II:if you're a genius non-Math-type, you might find the lack of rigor in the proofs tolerable.Plus, you, like the Quadrant Is, might be able to work through the material enough so that you can follow the author's explanations.If you're smart enough and have enough familiarity with the material before reading this book, you might find its terseness acceptable.

- Quadrant III:if you're a non-genius non-Math-type (i.e., "normal"), you'll be lost.You (we) won't understand what the point of this is, won't be able to work thru all the missing steps in the few proofs given, and will rant and rave when the authors "prove" one thing, give one example, and then ask the reader to prove the several follow-up theorems as an exercise.With, essentially, one example to work from in a subset of each topic, you'll never be able to work through the few questions with answers (which answers are short to the point of worthlessness) and will throw up your hands in dismay when attempting to solve the non-answered end-of-chapter questions.

- Quadrant IV:if you're a non-genius Math-type, you will join the Quadrant Is in horror at the lack of rigor, but, like the Quadrant IIIs, will be horribly frustrated since you won't be able to force your way through the material on your own.A definite lose-lose situation, here.

The really odd thing with this book is that, in the universities, Discrete Math (the subject) is usually a required course for Computer Science majors and is a PRE-CALCULUS course.There's absolutely no way that any such student at that point in his degree could get through this book.I received my B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan well over 20 years ago (so I've forgotten most everything, plus I was a Quadrant IV type but figured it out much later and migrated to Quadrant III), but there are entire chapters in this book where I only understand words like "the" and "and."The authors assume an extremely in-depth degree of mathematical knowledge on the part of the reader.Also, there's nothing to tie the subject matter back to anything a CS person (or any non-math-type) could use in his degree, profession, or life.So, once again, this book is very poorly matched against any intended audience.

I'd also like to point out that I doubt this book would ever be chosen by any academic institution for teaching.It just doesn't follow the established norms on how to teach.Specifically, it should:1) tell the readers what it's going to say, 2) tell them, and 3) tell them what it just told them.Each chapter and section in this book just starts out talking about something.You really have no idea where the authors are going until they actually get there.What the book really, REALLY needs is for the authors to state exactly what they're going to do in a section and chapter, do it, and then summarize it.Ditto for the book as a whole.The preface needs some kind of overall game plan so the people reading the book know where they're going.

Since the publisher hasn't provided the information on Amazon, I've put a scanned copy of the book's Table of Contents in the "User Images" area at the top of the page.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. ... Read more

Isbn: 0387955852
Sales Rank: 112521
Subjects:  1. Computer Science    2. Computers    3. Discrete Mathematics    4. Mathematics    5. Number Theory    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Mathematics / Discrete Mathematics   

Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science (2nd Edition)
by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, Oren Patashnik
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (28 February, 1994)
list price: $64.99 -- our price: $51.45
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Reviews (24)

A pourry of combinatorics
I want to start saying that this is a book designed for Engineers, not for Mathematicians. It focuses on the tecniques, not on the arguments. This is not a book about combinatorics, it is a wide raging introduction (it lacks on definitions, and his proofs are a lot far away from mathematical ones). The Enegineers can use this book as a good reference. The Mathematicians can improve their lateral thinking, for them (well: us) it is book about problem-solving strategies.
I will never use this book as a textbook for a graduate/undergraduate course, it can be helpful if used with another book about combinatorics: when you study a combinatorial object, you can read from this book the techniques it involves.
The exercises are extremely exciting, when I read this book I spent a lot of time about its exercises (proportion read:solve = 1:3), and they led me to interesting results.

Steep learning curve, the definitive prerequisite for TAOCP.
Why I got this book:
It's a great feeling to know how computers work, when I decided that I want to make a career and a life out of computers, as its truly a passion for me, I delved deeper, discovering the true beauty in the Science part of Computer Science, so I decided to get Donald Knuth' "The Art of Computer Programming" - to describe that seminal, huge work, it's like biting more than you can chew while trying to drink from a fire hose, moreover, the technical and mathematical prerequisites for the work are sometimes too demanding, they require a huge amount of experience with discrete mathematics, although I had some lectures and read some books, none came close "Concrete Mathematics", it covers, from ground up (though with a dangerously steep learning curve) a lot of discrete mathematics topics, it is by far the most extensive work I've read about Sums and really teaches the algorithmic problem solving thinking skill the authors preach so much about, with small amusing comments written by actual students of this course, a comfortable format, and very good writing skills, you can feel these guys are great professors who enjoy this material and are passionate about teaching it.

Recommended, though some better, less steep, introductionary text books are probably out there.

Enjoy.

Only one problem with this textbook
Basically, I like this textbook. The material is interesting, the way the authors presented the material is inspiring, and they provided a lot of jokes to make even studying for exams not that boring. But there is one big problem which made me decided to rate this book only 3 stars instead of 5 stars: the authors like to use non-standard notations. For example: m\n means "m>0 and n=mk for some integer k". One of the worst thing in scientific world is writing things others cannot read, and the authors did this by introducing many strange notations. These things makes the good work sometimes almost unreadable. This is not computer systems in which we use "cp" for the copy command and "cd" for change directory command.

What a pity the authors did that. This textbook will be perfect without those strange notations.... ... Read more

Isbn: 0201558025
Sales Rank: 70614
Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Science    3. General    4. Mathematics    5. Programming Languages - General