This undergraduate textbook is suitable for introductory classes in combinatorics and related topics. The book covers a wide range of both pure and applied combinatorics, beginning with the very basics of enumeration and then going on to Latin squares, graphs and designs. The latter topic is closely related to finite geometry, which is developed in parallel. Applications to probability theory, algebra, coding theory, cryptology and combinatorial game theory comprise the later chapters. Throughout the book, examples and exercises illustrate the material, and the interrelations between the various topics is emphasized. Readers looking to take first steps toward the study of combinatorics, finite geometry, design theory, coding theory, or cryptology will find this book valuable. Essentially self-contained, there are very few prerequisites aside from some mathematical maturity, and the little algebra required is covered in the text. The book is also a valuable resource for anyone interested in discrete mathematics as it ties together a wide variety of topics.

Thoroughly revised and updated, with an entirely new chapter on blocking sets in linear spaces.

Difference sets are of central interest in finite geometry and design theory. One of the main techniques to investigate abelian difference sets is a discrete version of the classical Fourier transform (i.e., character theory) in connection with algebraic number theory. This approach is described using only basic knowledge of algebra and algebraic number theory. It contains not only most of our present knowledge about abelian difference sets, but also gives applications of character theory to projective planes with quasiregular collineation groups. Therefore, the book is of interest both to geometers and mathematicians working on difference sets. Moreover, the Fourier transform is important in more applied branches of discrete mathematics such as coding theory and shift register sequences.

This volume contains a collection of papers on the subject of the classification of finite simple groups.

This undergraduate textbook is suitable for introductory classes in combinatorics and related topics. The book covers a wide range of both pure and applied combinatorics, beginning with the very basics of enumeration and then going on to Latin squares, graphs and designs. The latter topic is closely related to finite geometry, which is developed in parallel. Applications to probability theory, algebra, coding theory, cryptology and combinatorial game theory comprise the later chapters. Throughout the book, examples and exercises illustrate the material, and the interrelations between the various topics is emphasized. Readers looking to take first steps toward the study of combinatorics, finite geometry, design theory, coding theory, or cryptology will find this book valuable. Essentially self-contained, there are very few prerequisites aside from some mathematical maturity, and the little algebra required is covered in the text. The book is also a valuable resource for anyone interested in discrete mathematics as it ties together a wide variety of topics.

This volume contains the proceedings of the AMS Special Session on Discrete Geometry and Algebraic Combinatorics held on January 11, 2013, in San Diego, California. The collection of articles in this volume is devoted to packings of metric spaces and related questions, and contains new results as well as surveys of some areas of discrete geometry. This volume consists of papers on combinatorics of transportation polytopes, including results on the diameter of graphs of such polytopes; the generalized Steiner problem and related topics of the minimal fillings theory; a survey of distance graphs and graphs of diameters, and a group of papers on applications of algebraic combinatorics to packings of metric spaces including sphere packings and topics in coding theory. In particular, this volume presents a new approach to duality in sphere packing based on the Poisson summation formula, applications of semidefinite programming to spherical codes and equiangular lines, new results in list decoding of a family of algebraic codes, and constructions of bent and semi-bent functions.

I. Introduction 1. Finite fields 2. Projective spaces and algebraic varieties II. Elementary general properties 3. Subspaces 4. Partitions 5. Canonical forms for varieties and polarities III. The line and the plane 6. The line 7. First properties of the plane 8. Ovals 9. Arithmetic of arcs of degree two 10. Arcs in ovals 11. Cubic curves 12. Arcs of higher degree 13. Blocking sets 14. Small planes Appendix Notation References.