Ebook: Discrete Mathematics for New Technology, Second Edition

I originally purchased this book because the topics list had a lot of common items with the Praxis test list (for high school math teachers). Although I recognize this is a class textbook somewhere I did not take it in a class and simply used it for self-study. I found it to be one of the best math textbooks I've ever used for self-study. Although probably very few people checking out these reviews will be taking the Math Praxis test (WEST-E in Washington state), if you are then I highly recommend this text to study/review.

The text covers a wide range of topics, and in that sense it truly is good for students considering technology or computer programming. It is also good in many parts for people who work with databases and are interested in learning more about the mathematics behind databases. It also has an interesting and reasonably well developed chapter on graph theory which can appeal to a wide range of fields - in some ways the introductory level approach to this field is perfect as it can easily be explored by people not wildly interested in mathematics and yet they can find find relevance in almost any field.

Topics covered include functions, set theory, graph theory and some basic combinatorics. This book provides a good foundation for each area, but understandably specializing in the mathematics of any particular field requires additional specialized texts.

One of the best specifics and strengths of the text is a multi-page multi-example review of injective/surjective/bijective functions. Usually these terms are described in a terse sentence or two each - this text gives pages of examples,pictures, etc.

This book is accessible to students whom have successfully completed a strong algebra/geometry sequence... precalculus will help but is not absolutely necessary.