A course in combinatorics and graphs (Q6540556)

The topics covered in this book are:\N\begin{itemize}\N\item Power series and generating functions: ordinary generating functions are related to the enumeration of certain graphs, walks, and partitions; exponential generating functions are related to classes of permutations and labelled graphs; Polya's enumeration under symmetry is introduced with applications to unlabelled graphs and rotations of the cube.\N\item Latin squares and finite geometries: Hall's Marriage Theorem is used to prove that every Latin rectangle has a completion; mutually orthogonal Latin squares are introduced and related to finite projective planes; a proof of the Bryck-Ryser theorem is given; Desargues' theorem is proved and a non-Desarguesian plane constructed.\N\item Topics in graph theory include matchings, colourings, connectivity, and planarity concluding with an introduction to extremal graph theory. Complete proofs of some well-known results are presented including Tutte's theorem on bridgeless cubic graphs, Vizing's theorem on colourings, and the Erdös-Stone theorem in extremal graph theory. Each of these proofs spans multiple pages but is presented in steps achievable by an ambitious undergraduate student.\N\end{itemize}\N\NThis is a volume of Birkäuser's Compact Textbooks in Mathematics: it contains definitions, statements, and proofs (with all necessary detail) but without much additional commentary. While the coverage is comprehensive it does require some background and some mathematical maturity from the reader: the chapter on Polya's theory of enumeration contains the barest overview of permutation groups, and really requires familiarity with a first course on group theory; the material on MOLS and finite geometries requires previous exposure to finite fields and linear algebra. These are reasonable assumptions for the intended audience of final year undergraduates. Supplemented appropriately, it would also make an ideal textbook for a course for beginning graduate students.\N\NThe reviewer has few reservations (and none of substance). The absence of an index is a minor inconvenience, the authors' preference for di-hedral over dihedral is a question of style. The reference list contains a number of primary sources, and one standard reference for each topic: Diestel for graph theory, and van Lint-Wilson for Latin squares. In light of the concision of this text, a slightly more comprehensive guide to the broader literature would have been helpful.\N\NA most valuable feature of this book is the carefully curated set of exercises; the reviewer was most impressed at how they invariably found the `Goldilocks zone' between triviality and excessive difficulty for the intended audience. In the chapter on power series and generating functions, one finds Euler's bijection between partitions with odd and distinct parts as the first exercise, and the enumeration of irreducible polynomials over finite fields using Lagrange inversion among the last.\N\NIn summary, this is an excellent and rapid introduction to combinatorics for advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students.