Dispersed Math (离散数学)

Dec 9, 2016


writing this article, I was guided by my unforgettable experience when reading this book and interest in learning dispersed math. As a student, my original purpose was to learn a kind of math that is closely related to programming. After reading this book, I think the dispersed math is not a kind of math, and is not a kind of book that introduces methods of math. It is philosophy, it can become a rule of life.

Let me briefly introduce this book. The author is Kenneth H. Rosen. "A successful dispersed mathematics course should carefully blend and balance all five themes.", He said. So this book can be divided into five parts: 
1. Mathematical Reasoning. 2. Combinatorial Analysis. 3. Dispersed Structures. 4. Algorithmic Thinking. 5. Application and Modeling.


The first three parts are theories,  thoes theories are carefully written and constructed to support dispersed mathmatics courses at several levels and different directions.The last two parts put the math into practice. Algothmic thinking partial to the computer engineering, and the application and modelling partial to the applications in our life.This part also provide with a lot of solutions to some problems in the practice. These solutions explain why a particular method is used and why it works.


What is  dispersed mathematics? Dispersed mathematics is the part of mathematics devoted to the study of dispersed objects.(Here dispersed means consisting of distinct or unconnected elements.) There are several reasons for us to study dispersed mathematics. First, as I said above, learning a kind of math which is closely related to programming is very useful as a software engineering student.  And through this book, I can develop my mathematical maturity: that is , my ability to understand and create mathematical arguments.I think I will not get very far in my studies in the mathematical sciences without these skills.


Also, the author said, dispersed mathematics contains the necessary mathematical background for solving problems in operations research including many dispersed optimization techniques, chemistry, engineering, biology, and so on. In the book , I learned applications to some of these areas.As we know, our world is made up with dispersed matter, which is widely controversial during the 19th century and finally become a generally acknowledged truth.So if we try to explain the world by this kind of dispersed way, many hard-to-interpret theory can be easily confirmed.For instance, why computer can calculate so fast? Just because it has CPU? No, it consists of many dispersed parts including CPU, those part just does their own work, and translates or absorbs the information from the Memory. So the computer works well, and seems never to make mistakes.


It is a pleasure to read this book, it tells me the math is not as boring as doing exercise over and over again. It suggests me to think the world by the dispersed way, and always bear in mind this way when programme.