This supplement begins with a brief introduction to Mathematica, its capabilities, and its use.
The
material in this introductory chapter explains the philosophy behind working with Mathematica, how
Chapter00.nb
4to use Mathematica to carry out computations, and its basic structure. This introduction continues by
explaining the basic concepts and syntax for programming with Mathematica. This will provide those
who are new to Mathematica and programming languages the background they will need in the rest of
the book.
Following the introduction, the main body of this book contains thirteen chapters. Each chapter paral-
lels a chapter of Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, Seventh Edition, by Kenneth H. Rosen
(henceforth referred to as the text or the textbook). Each chapter includes comprehensive coverage
explaining how Mathematica can be used to explore the topics of the corresponding chapter of the text.
This includes a discussion of relevant Mathematica commands, many new functions written expressly
for this book, and examples illustrating how to use Mathematica to explore topics in the text.
Additionally, we discuss selected Computer Projects and Computations and Explorations from the
corresponding chapter of the text. We provide guidance, partial solutions, or complete solutions to
these exercises. A similar philosophy governs the inclusion of these solutions as does the inclusion of
answers to selected exercises in the back of most mathematics textbooks. You should attempt the
problem on your own first. The solutions in this manual are intended to be referred to: after you have
succeeded in solving a problem to see a (potentially) different approach; when you've stopped making
progress on your own and need a slight boost to continue; or when you're trying to solve a similar
problem.
Finally, each chapter concludes with a set of additional questions for you to explore. Some of these are
straightforward computational exercises, while others are more accurately described as projects requir-
ing substantial additional work, including programming.
The chapters of this manual are available in two formats: as a pdf document and as a Mathematica
Notebook. The pdf format contains all of the text and Mathematica functions and other information
that you need. The Mathematica Notebook version of the chapter includes additional features, specifi-
cally active Mathematica code and links to Mathematica documentation. It is recommended that you
primarily work with the Mathematica Notebook version of this manual, and use the pdf version for
when you do not have access to Mathematica.
When you first open the Mathematica Notebook for any chapter, it is recommended that you evaluate
the initialization cells in that notebook by selecting Evaluate Initialization Cells from the Evaluation
menu. This way, the vital symbols within the chapter, those associated with variables and functions
you may want to use, will be available for you, without your having to execute each of their definitions
manually.
If you do not explicitly cause the initialization cells to be evaluated, the first time you evaluate any cell
in the notebook, you will see a dialog box like the one below. Selecting “Yes” is recommended and
will cause all of the initialization cells to be executed.
Alternatively, selecting Evaluate Notebook from the Evaluation menu will cause every input cell in
the notebook to be evaluated. If you choose this option, you will also see a message similar to the one
above asking whether or not you want to evaluate all of the initialization cells. In this case, having
selected Evaluate Notebook, it is recommended you choose “No” in the dialog. Selecting “Yes” will
cause all of the initialization cells to be evaluated and then every cell in the notebook will be evaluated,
meaning the initialization cells would each be evaluated twice, which is unnecessary.
