Enumerative combinatoricsEnumerative combinatorics is an area of combinatorics that deals with the number of ways that certain patterns can be formed. Two examples of this type of problem are counting combinations and counting permutations. More generally, given an infinite collection of finite sets Si indexed by the natural numbers, enumerative combinatorics seeks to describe a counting function which counts the number of objects in Sn for each n.
Integer sequenceIn mathematics, an integer sequence is a sequence (i.e., an ordered list) of integers. An integer sequence may be specified explicitly by giving a formula for its nth term, or implicitly by giving a relationship between its terms. For example, the sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ... (the Fibonacci sequence) is formed by starting with 0 and 1 and then adding any two consecutive terms to obtain the next one: an implicit description. The sequence 0, 3, 8, 15, ... is formed according to the formula n2 − 1 for the nth term: an explicit definition.
Narayana numberIn combinatorics, the Narayana numbers form a triangular array of natural numbers, called the Narayana triangle, that occur in various counting problems. They are named after Canadian mathematician T. V. Narayana (1930–1987). The Narayana numbers can be expressed in terms of binomial coefficients: The first eight rows of the Narayana triangle read: An example of a counting problem whose solution can be given in terms of the Narayana numbers , is the number of words containing n pairs of parentheses, which are correctly matched (known as Dyck words) and which contain k distinct nestings.
Dyck languageIn the theory of formal languages of computer science, mathematics, and linguistics, a Dyck word is a balanced string of brackets. The set of Dyck words forms a Dyck language. The simplest, D1, use just two matching brackets, e.g. ( and ). Dyck words and language are named after the mathematician Walther von Dyck. They have applications in the parsing of expressions that must have a correctly nested sequence of brackets, such as arithmetic or algebraic expressions. Let be the alphabet consisting of the symbols [ and ].
Partition of a setIn mathematics, a partition of a set is a grouping of its elements into non-empty subsets, in such a way that every element is included in exactly one subset. Every equivalence relation on a set defines a partition of this set, and every partition defines an equivalence relation. A set equipped with an equivalence relation or a partition is sometimes called a setoid, typically in type theory and proof theory. A partition of a set X is a set of non-empty subsets of X such that every element x in X is in exactly one of these subsets (i.
Binomial transformIn combinatorics, the binomial transform is a sequence transformation (i.e., a transform of a sequence) that computes its forward differences. It is closely related to the Euler transform, which is the result of applying the binomial transform to the sequence associated with its ordinary generating function. The binomial transform, T, of a sequence, {an}, is the sequence {sn} defined by Formally, one may write for the transformation, where T is an infinite-dimensional operator with matrix elements Tnk.
Binary treeIn computer science, a binary tree is a k-ary tree data structure in which each node has at most two children, which are referred to as the and the . A recursive definition using just set theory notions is that a (non-empty) binary tree is a tuple (L, S, R), where L and R are binary trees or the empty set and S is a singleton set containing the root. Some authors allow the binary tree to be the empty set as well. From a graph theory perspective, binary (and K-ary) trees as defined here are arborescences.
Generating functionIn mathematics, a generating function is a way of encoding an infinite sequence of numbers (an) by treating them as the coefficients of a formal power series. This series is called the generating function of the sequence. Unlike an ordinary series, the formal power series is not required to converge: in fact, the generating function is not actually regarded as a function, and the "variable" remains an indeterminate. Generating functions were first introduced by Abraham de Moivre in 1730, in order to solve the general linear recurrence problem.
Bell numberIn combinatorial mathematics, the Bell numbers count the possible partitions of a set. These numbers have been studied by mathematicians since the 19th century, and their roots go back to medieval Japan. In an example of Stigler's law of eponymy, they are named after Eric Temple Bell, who wrote about them in the 1930s. The Bell numbers are denoted , where is an integer greater than or equal to zero. Starting with , the first few Bell numbers are 1, 1, 2, 5, 15, 52, 203, 877, 4140, ... .
Binomial coefficientIn mathematics, the binomial coefficients are the positive integers that occur as coefficients in the binomial theorem. Commonly, a binomial coefficient is indexed by a pair of integers n ≥ k ≥ 0 and is written It is the coefficient of the xk term in the polynomial expansion of the binomial power (1 + x)n; this coefficient can be computed by the multiplicative formula which using factorial notation can be compactly expressed as For example, the fourth power of 1 + x is and the binomial coefficient is the coefficient of the x2 term.
