Discrete Mathematics (Oxford Science Publications) [Paperback]

Norman L. Biggs (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198534272 | ISBN-13: 978-0198534273 | Publication Date: September 2, 1993 | Edition: Revised

This text is a carefully structured, coherent, and comprehensive course of discrete mathematics. The approach is traditional, deductive, and straightforward, with no unnecessary abstraction. It is self-contained including all the fundamental ideas in the field. It can be approached by anyone with basic competence in arithmetic and experience of simple algebraic manipulations. Students of computer science whose curriculum may not allow the study of many ancillary mathematics courses will find it particularly useful. Mathematics students seeking a first approach to courses such as graph theory, combinatorics, number theory, coding theory, combinatorial optimization, and abstract algebra will also enjoy a clear introduction to these more specialized fields. The main changes to this new edition are to present descriptions of numerous algorithms on a form close to that of a real programming language. The aim is to enable students to develop practical programs from the design of algorithms. Students of mathematics and computer science seeking an eloquent introduction to discrete mathematics will be pleased by this work.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`For the Second Edition: "... it is a wonderful book. Biggs' expository style is of the highest quality." ' Professor James Reid, University of Mississippi

`"... a well written book by a world-renowned expert. The explanations go to the heart of the matter and the proofs given are elegant." ' Professor Mohan Shrikhande, University of Michigan

`" the material is well written in a clear and lucid style ... " ' Dr Jim Renshaw, University of Southampton

`the new chapters are elegantly written' Dr Peter Robinson, University of Cambridge

`From recent reviews of the first edition: "Biggs' book ... a timely and important addition to the literature ... stands out for its clarity of exposition, its careful organization, and for the way in which it reduces unnecessary abstraction to a minimum ... The range of topics covered is astonishing ... and ... it is written with humour and a lightness of touch which make it a pleasure to read." ' Times Higher Education Supplemement

`"It seems to me that the book is as comprehensive as one could hope. I strongly recommend it" ' Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society

`"the comprehensive course of discrete mathematics" ' L'Enseignement Mathematique, t.36, fasc.1-2, 1990 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Norman L. Biggs is Professor of Mathematics, London School of Economics, University of London

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Revised edition (September 2, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198534272
• ISBN-13: 978-0198534273
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,757,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great book, April 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Discrete Mathematics (Hardcover)

Dr. Biggs' book is an excellent introduction to discrete maths--I used it for the first term and part of the second term of his "Introduction to Pure Maths". The book reads the same as he lectures, which, while sometimes creepy (it's like he's talking to you), is a very good thing. It is very well written and explains everything clearly. He has plenty of worked examples to illustrate how to use what he has taught as well as exercises (w/ answers in the back of the book) for students to work out for themselves.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unthorough, Inadequate for Early Learners, March 15, 2010

By 

Computer Science Student "JM" (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discrete Mathematics (Paperback)

This was the required text in a course I just took in discrete mathematics, and it is very lacking. The descriptions are not detailed enough for first-time learners of the material. Biggs tries to cover very many topics, and as such, doesn't cover any given topic thoroughly. The book feels like random snapshots of various components of discrete mathematics, but not all of the snapshots are representative of the topics to which they belong.

For one group of chapters, Biggs discusses things which are only really relevant or applicable in computer science (or, at the very least, given a computer). This is to be expected - discrete mathematics and computer science go hand in hand. Unfortunately, though, it does not appear that he is a practicing computer scientist - he omits the names behind some of the famous algorithms, i.e. Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm and Prim's minimum spanning tree algorithm. He ditches the minimum spanning tree problem and proceeds to DFS without discussing Kruskal's algorithm. He also performs heap sort with a min order heap, sorting elements in ascending order, which, as most computer science students should be able to recognize, requirs linear-order extra space in order to copy the final array (as opposed to using a max-order heap, which requires only constant space). He uses a seemingly FORTRAN-based pseudocode, but omits symbols, adds more English words (as if FORTRAN didn't have enough), and uses no comments.

All in all, avoid this book if possible. For introductory-level discrete mathematics, I would recommend Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, which still sits on my shelf and serves as a great quick reference. For introductory-level data structures and algorithms, I would *highly* recommend Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in C++ (3rd Edition), which has extensive diagrams, examples, analyses, proofs, and even some fully coded implementations to help jump-start readers as they get more comfortable with ADT use (also available for C and Java). However, no book is ever a substitute for going to school :-P.

I hope the Biggs book is never mandatory for any of your classes.

Cheers!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book, October 29, 2010

By 

Andrea Lazzarotto (Borso del Grappa, Treviso, Italy) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Discrete Mathematics (Paperback)

I bought this book for my first year at university. It is a good book, clear and concise, and altought I bought a used one (second edition) it was like a new one, so I'm very happy. :)