Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0136020402 ISBN 13: 9780136020400

Publisher: Pearson, 2009

Appropriate for one- or two-semester, junior- to senior-level combinatorics courses.

This trusted best-seller covers the key combinatorial ideas–including the pigeon-hole principle, counting techniques, permutations and combinations, Pólya counting, binomial coefficients, inclusion-exclusion principle, generating functions and recurrence relations, combinatortial structures (matchings, designs, graphs), and flows in networks. The Fifth Edition incorporates feedback from users to the exposition throughout and adds a wealth of new exercises.

From the Publisher:

The market best seller. Level is dead center.

From the Back Cover:

Introductory Combinatorics emphasizes combinatorial ideas, including the pigeon-hole principle, counting techniques, permutations and combinations, Polya counting, binomial coefficients, inclusion-exclusion principle, generating functions and recurrence relations, and combinatortial structures (matchings, designs, graphs). Written to be entertaining and readable, this book's lively style reflects the author's joy for teaching the subject. It presents an excellent treatment of Polya's Counting Theorem that doesn't assume the student is familiar with group theory. It also includes problems that offer good practice of the principles it presents. The third edition of Introductory Combinatorics has been updated to include new material on partially ordered sets, Dilworth's Theorem, partitions of integers and generating functions. In addition, the chapters on graph theory have been completely revised. A valuable book for any reader interested in learning more about combinatorics.