Customer Reviews

Discrete Mathematics With Graph Theory

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

As a teacher of discrete mathematics, I must constantly scan new books in the never-ending search for the best one with appropriate content and level. The course that I teach is required and early in the computer science major. It also provides the mathematical foundation for all of the later computer science courses. Therefore, any book that I use must demonstrate mathematical proofs, but not at too high a level. Coverage of fundamental topics such as propositional logic, sets, relations and functions; basic combinatorics and induction are a requirement.

This book covers these fundamentals at exactly the level of rigor that I need. There are some proofs, but nothing that is beyond the motivated freshman/sophomore who is receiving the appropriate direction. However, I will not be adopting it because of the large amount of graph theory, which is approximately forty percent of the book. In our class we do cover some graph theory, but prefer to spend less time on it than this book would allow. Our department recently added a course in graph theory, so we only need to touch on the basics of graphs in discrete mathematics.

Therefore, while the book is not suitable for my needs, it would be a perfect fit for anyone teaching discrete mathematics where there was an emphasis on graph theory. In fact, the second half of the book could serve as a starter text for our course in graph theory.

I have used this book for my Discrete Math class.

Pros: Has a lot of Exercises to work on. Pretty Advanced style of Explanation.If you have a good professor this book will help.

Cons: If you are just starting to learn Discrete Math, this is not the book for you. The examples and the explanation are pretty advance sort .

It is hard to understand Discrete Math by reading this book only .So if you are depending on your self i would suggest you look for a different book.

I do not recommend this book. While yes, it provides clearly marked definitions and formulas, when giving examples, the work shown leaves out some key steps that leave the reader grasping into thin air trying to figure out the method to their madness. Some exercise questions are vaguely written, leaving the student to interpret the meaning, which may result in differing answers.

If you have a teacher who uses this book, get it. Otherwise, if you are teaching yourself (or just have that bad of a teacher), either pass on buying this book or buy a supplement. Or find a good math tutor, you'll need it.

This was required for a math class I was taking. In general the concepts lacked extensive explanations, feeling more like an overview of major topics. If you do not have an outside source of information such as a TA, professor, or another reference book it will be very difficult for you to learn the subject matter from this book.

This text was designed mainly for young university students with the goal of introducing concepts such as induction to as well as, of course, some introductory descrete math and graph theory, with the former (induction, etc.) being as important as the latter. This is not a comprehensive text and was not intended to be so. It is a pleasent bridge to more mathematically correct way of thinking. Proofs are emphasized, not numerical answers (in most sections). Famous proofs are displayed and are incorperated in a non-trivial way. This book is applicable for mathematics and computer science students alike and the questions have a good spread of difficulty. I recommend this book to anyone interested in something more than high school math.

I'm currently taking a Discrete Math class with this textbook. I don't have any background in the subject, and my theoretical math background is limited to a Proofs course and a Non-Euclidan Geometry class. (Other than that I have the usual amount of undergraduate calculus and so on.)

I think this book is fantastic. It is written in an engagingly casual style, and it uses a lot of examples and detail to work out the material. The other theoretical math texts I've used really don't do this - they expect you to treat their material more as hints to do your own work, which can be really hard for students (and is why you have a professor, after all).

I can't address how well this book actually covers the various topics of discrete math, since I only know what I've learned in the course so far, but I'm very impressed with how well it spells things out. It's not exactly "light reading" (it's not Discrete Math for Dummies) but it is quite accessible.

The concepts taught in this is fairly straight forward, but the Author makes every attempt to confuse and make it difficult. I have never seen such a horrible math book in all of my years as a student. I'll break down a typical chapter:

Chapter organization (i.e. are the topics covered related?): Pretty good as as whole. Each topic is introduced bit by bit and the flow from one section to the next makes sense.

Each individual section:

Each section and chapters too, are prefaced with some nonsensical garbage that kind of relates to the chapter; sometimes it's some stupid fictional story the author wish would happen with his fictitious friends, and other times it would be a situation that could maybe might happen in real life, assuming you're a total loser, and have nothing better to do than to count things. Or maybe you're the count, from Sesame Street. I don't know, whatever.

Then the author introduces the concept, and makes it has hard as possible to get and understand.

After that, he has 'Pauses' where you're suppose to suddenly understand what he's suppose to be teaching you. These pauses make no sense, and might as well be at the end of the chapter or section.

The book does do a decent job in highlighting key concepts and definitions, but I still find some important information and key concepts buried deep in some example.

After that, you may still be wondering why this book is not even worth 1 star. This is why:

Proofs are INSANELY hard to flow.

Examples are also INSANELY hard to flow.

That's because the author thought it would be best solve the problem as if he's talking you through it. The only way he can do this is by putting the BOTH proofs AND examples in a paragraph INSTEAD of showing the steps LINE BY LINE. Every good math book worth its salt has the examples shown clearly line by line. They may never show every obvious step they make, but it's at least easy to see what you understand and what you don't understand. This book uses one paragraph to explain the answer. And it's not even a long paragraph. So this MATH book ends up being a wall of text. Most of the symbols are just bold alphabet charaters, so it makes it even harder to find what you're looking for and follow the text.

What broke the straw on the camels back is the fact that his text is setup like this: (periods added for clarity)

Example 11: BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

............BLAH BLAH BLAH

............_______________

............ Problem 12: Stupid problem here.

I am not sure what the difference is between Example and Problem, but he uses PROBLEM to describe an example and exercise to describe the problems you're suppose to work out. Then occasionally he will have an 'exercise' refeer to a 'problem' and you looking at the wrong thing for five minutes before you realize. Also he will do this:

problem 12 blah blah blah sets up problem whatever.

...refeer to exercise 32 for more.

Of course, the exercise doesn't have the answer, and they just say 'work problem 12 blah blah'. But then puts the answer in the back of the book.

Overall this book is extremely terrible, and you should shame your professor if he tells you to buy this god awful book. If your professor tells you to buy this book, then he probably also sucks at teaching the material, and I would strongly consider dropping the class.

This book is the worse math textbook I have ever encountered. There is not enough explanation regarding the theory and the examples are not helpful. The exercises in each chapter can not be referred back to the chapter reading at all. The chapter pages are structured to save paper. Everything is jammed together. I am currently taking the course and between the instructor and the book little knowledge is being passed to the less than ten people in the class. This book should NEVER be used!

I think is was a little slow in the way to my home, but I was very satisfactorily with the quality of the book

It is one thing to learn math. It is another thing to read it from a textbook. Although discrete mathematics is not meant to be all that numerically focused, I do not recommend using this text at all. There are very few examples to accompany the new content and the explanations are not clear. Also, the section review problems are NOTHING like the material presented. Yes, it is imperative to think like a mathematician, but the problems are worded much too differently than what is taught. Do not expect to do well in a course using this text unless you have a helpful instructor!