2 Chapter00.
nb
This book is based on the second edition of Exploring Discrete Mathematics with Maple, which was
substantially updated from the first edition of that book. However, this book retains the spirit and goals
of that work and thus we reproduce the preface of the original book below.
Acknowledgements
I am deeply indebted to the authors of the first edition for providing an excellent foundation on which
to build. I am particularly grateful to Ken Rosen for his guidance throughout this project and for giving
me the opportunity to be part of it.
Thanks go to the staff at McGraw-Hill Higher Education, in particular Bill Stenquist, Michael Lang,
and Thomas Timp.
I am grateful to Martin Erickson for his continued mentorship. To Daniel Baack, Jason Beckfield,
Elizabeth Davis-Berg, Julie Minbiole, Christopher Shaw, Michael Welsh, and Heather Minges Wols
for their constant support and encouragement. Finally, I am always grateful to my parents for all they
have done.
Daniel R. Jordan
djordan@[Link]
Preface to the First Edition of Exploring Discrete Mathematics with Maple
This book is a supplement to Ken Rosen's text Discrete Mathematics and its Applications, Third Edi-
tion, published by McGraw-Hill. It is unique as an ancillary to a discrete mathematics text in that its
entire focus is on the computational aspects of the subject. This focus has allowed us to cover exten-
sively and comprehensively how computations in the different areas of discrete mathematics can be
performed, as well as how results of these computations can be used in explorations. This book pro-
vides a new perspective and a set of tools for exploring concepts in discrete mathematics, complement-
ing the traditional aspects of an introductory course. We hope the users of this book will enjoy working
with it as much as the authors have enjoyed putting this book together.
This book was written by a team of people, including Stan Devitt, one of the principle authors of the
Maple system and Eithne Murray who has developed code for certain Maple packages. Two other
authors, Troy Vasiga, and James McCarron have mastered discrete mathematics and Maple through
their studies at the University of Waterloo, a key center of discrete mathematics research and the birth-
place of Waterloo Maple Inc.
To effectively use this book, a student should be taking, or have taken, a course in discrete mathemat-
ics. For maximum effectiveness, the text used should be Ken Rosen's Discrete Mathematics and its
Applications, although this volume will be useful even if this is not the case. We assume that the stu-
dent has access to Maple, Release 3 or later. We have included material based on Maple shareware and
on Release 4 with explicit indication of where this is done. (Where to obtain Maple shareware is
described in the Introduction.) We do not assume that the student has previously used Maple. In fact,
working through the book can teach students Maple while they are learning discrete mathematics. Of
course, the level of sophistication of students with respect to programming will determine their ability
to write their own Maple routines. We make peripheral use of calculus in this book. Although all
places where calculus is used can be omitted, students who have studied calculus will find this material
of interest.
This volume contains a great deal of Maple code, much based on existing Maple functions. But substan-
tial extensions to Maple can be found throughout the book; new Maple routines have been added in
key places, extending the capabilities of what is currently part of Maple. An excellent example is new
Maple code for displaying trees, providing functionality not currently part of the network package of
Maple. All the Maple code in this book is available over the Internet; see the Introduction for details.