Enumerative 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. Although counting the number of elements in a set is a rather broad mathematical problem, many of the problems that arise in applications have a relatively simple combinatorial description. The twelvefold way provides a unified framework for counting permutations, combinations and partitions.
The simplest such functions are closed formulas, which can be expressed as a composition of elementary functions such as factorials, powers, and so on. For instance, as shown below, the number of different possible orderings of a deck of n cards is f(n) = n!. The problem of finding a closed formula is known as algebraic enumeration, and frequently involves deriving a recurrence relation or generating function and using this to arrive at the desired closed form.
Often, a complicated closed formula yields little insight into the behavior of the counting function as the number of counted objects grows.
In these cases, a simple asymptotic approximation may be preferable. A function is an asymptotic approximation to if as . In this case, we write
Generating functions are used to describe families of combinatorial objects. Let denote the family of objects and let F(x) be its generating function. Then
where denotes the number of combinatorial objects of size n. The number of combinatorial objects of size n is therefore given by the coefficient of . Some common operation on families of combinatorial objects and its effect on the generating function will now be developed.
The exponential generating function is also sometimes used. In this case it would have the form
Once determined, the generating function yields the information given by the previous approaches.
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In proving results in combinatorics several useful combinatorial rules or combinatorial principles are commonly recognized and used. The rule of sum, rule of product, and inclusion–exclusion principle are often used for enumerative purposes. Bijective proofs are utilized to demonstrate that two sets have the same number of elements. The pigeonhole principle often ascertains the existence of something or is used to determine the minimum or maximum number of something in a discrete context.
En combinatoire, un indicateur de cycles est un polynôme en plusieurs variables qui porte certaines informations sur l'action d'un groupe de permutations. Cette manière algébrique et condensée de stocker des informations est souvent utilisée dans des problèmes de dénombrement. Toute permutation π d'un ensemble fini partitionne cet ensemble en cycles ; le monôme indicateur de cycles de π est un produit de puissances des variables a, a, ... qui décrit le « type » de cette partition, ou « type de cycles » de π : l'exposant de a est le nombre de cycles de π de longueur i.
Enumerative 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.
Study of structures and concepts that do not require the notion of continuity. Graph theory, or study of general countable sets are some of the areas that are covered by discrete mathematics. Emphasis
Discrete mathematics is a discipline with applications to almost all areas of study. It provides a set of indispensable tools to computer science in particular. This course reviews (familiar) topics a
Explore l'influence de la complexité sur les propriétés ergonomiques des systèmes symboliques, présentant le théorème Curtis-Hedlund-Lyndon et les constructions de sous-postes minimaux.
Explore les applications de la théorie ergonomique à la combinatoire et la théorie des nombres, y compris le théorème de Szemerédi et le théorème d'Erdős-Kac.
We describe an injection from border-strip decompositions of certain diagrams to permutations. This allows us to provide enumeration results as well as q-analogues of enumeration formulas. Finally, we use this injection to prove a connection between the number of border-strip decompositions of the n x 2n rectangle and the Weil-Petersson volume of the moduli space of an n-punctured Riemann sphere.