Home :: Books :: Professional & Technical  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical

Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Discrete Math with Proof

Discrete Math with Proof

List Price: $112.00
Your Price: $112.00
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Adequate, but with one amazing and serious flaw
Review: There were two things in this book that I found distinctive, one positive and the other negative. In the positive area, the material at the end of the chapters is more thorough than I have seen in any other discrete mathematics book. Chapter reviews are composed of:

*) A summary of the chapter.
*) The notation used in the chapter.
*) A list of the definitions of the new terms used in the chapter.
*) A list of the theorems in the chapter.
*) A sample exam over the chapter.
*) Two lists of projects, one mathematical and the other using computer science.
*) Solutions to the questions in the sample exam.

Quick check problems are scattered throughout the chapter and the solutions to those problems immediately precede the chapter summary material.
On the negative side, the title of the twelfth and last chapter is "Functions, Relations, Databases and Circuits." It baffles me when I see relations and functions relegated to the last chapter. Although relations and functions are not explicitly defined before chapter twelve, they are used throughout the book. Standard functional notation is used throughout chapter four, "Algorithms", and chapter seven, "Recursion." Section 7.2 is "Recurrence Relations" and section 7.4 is "Generating Functions." In my opinion, delaying the definition of a function to page 729 and that of a relation to page 732 is very wrong. If I were to use this book, I would be forced to cover the material at the start of chapter 12 immediately after chapter two, "Set, Logic and Boolean Algebras." Since I would not do that, I will not use this book as a text.
Other than these two features, the coverage is that usually found in a discrete math book. As the title suggests, there is more emphasis on proof than there is in other books, although the extra amount is not that significant. While some proofs are presented in discrete mathematics, it is generally the first course, so the amount of proofs that the students are required to do is less than that in more advanced math courses. Therefore, the presence of more proofs will not sway me towards adopting the book.


<< 1 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates