Acknowledgements Acknowledgements
This book is a synthesis of three textbooks on discrete mathematics and combinatorics. First, many of the problems, and indeed entire sections, come directly from Combinatorics Through Guided Discovery by Kenneth P. Bogart. This is possible thanks to the Bogart estate's decision to release his book under an open license (the GFDL, the same license this text uses). The format of this book has been made to match that of Bogart's text, with most of the exposition being driven by problems (which we call activities) for students to work on. A copy of Bogart's book can be found for free at bogart.openmathbooks.org.
The second source for material is Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics by Richard Grassl and Tabitha Mingus. This is a set of notes used for many years as the textbook for MATH 528 at the University of Northern Colorado. We have tried to capture the flavor and emphasis of this book, and have used many of its exercises among our activities.
For the background material contained in the index, as well as much of the chapter on graph theory, material was borrowed from Discrete Mathematics: an Open Introduction, the book I wrote for the undergraduate discrete course at the University of Northern Colorado. This book can be found (for free) at discrete.openmathbooks.org.
Finally, thanks to Ricardo Diaz for his helpful suggestions while compiling this book. And thanks in advance to all the students who will soon be contacting me with suggestions for improvements.
Oscar Levin, Ph.D.University of Northern Colorado, 2018