First Course in Combinatorial Mathematics

This introduction to the basic combinatorial tools, such as recurrence relations, generating functions, incidence matrices and the inclusion-exclusion principle, has been designed to give readers a flavour of the distinctive characteristics of this branch of mathematics. The text contains a study of block designs, which is followed by a brief mention of their application to coding theory. In this new edition, Steiner triple systems are constructed and the three combinatorial structures of the Leech lattice, the Golay codes and Steiner systems are examined. The edition also includes an application of the marriage theorem to score sequences of tournaments.