The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
Discrete mathematics is the study of discrete phenomena involving the system of natural numbers. (For comparison, calculus is the study of continuous mathematics on the set of real numbers.) The natural numbers are considered discrete since each element of the set can be isolated. This is not possible with the rational numbers, for example, because one can always find a rational number between any pair of rational numbers.
Discrete mathematics is an inclusive field that embraces many areas of mathematical study, some hundreds of years old and others developed only within the past few decades. In general, these areas involve counting objects, studying the relationship between finite sets, and analyzing processes that terminate in a finite number of steps (i.e., algorithms).
Some of the topics covered in discrete mathematics courses include first-order logic, mathematical induction, sets, number theory, functions and relations, combinatorics, finite probability, graph theory, Boolean algebra, linear programming, algorithmic thinking, formal languages and modeling computation. By studying these fields, one can develop answers to questions like:
Courses in discrete mathematics first appeared around 1980 on account of the increasing impact of computers on mathematics and the need of computer science majors to master the topics listed above. Since the inner workings of digital computers are discrete, one must use discrete computer models to replicate continuous phenomena.