Swarthmore College

State University of New York at Buffalo

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Cover Illustration: The Towers of Hanoi. For more information, please see page 99.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maurer, Stephen B.
Discrete algorithmic mathematics / Stephen B. Maurer, Anthony Ralston. ?3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Mathematics. 2. Computer science Mathematics. I. Ralston, Anthony. II. Title.
QA39.3.M435 2004
510-dc22
2004044529

08 07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Authors

Stephen Maurer (B.A. Swarthmore 1967, Ph.D. Princeton 1972) is a Professor of Mathematics at Swarthmore College, where he has taught since 1979. He has also taught at the Phillips Exeter Academy, the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Princeton, Hampshire College (in their summer mathematics program for able secondary school students), and MathPath (a national summer program for advanced middle school kids). During 2000 2003, he was Associate Provost for Information Technology at Swarthmore. His research has been in combinatorics, with forays (sometimes continuous) into mathematical...