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% Preface to Concrete Mathematics
% (c) Addison-Wesley, all rights reserved.
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\beginchapter {} Preface

THIS BOOK IS BASED on a course of the same name
\g\noindent\llap{``}Audience, level, and treatment\dash---a description of such matters
is what prefaces are supposed to be about.''\par
\hfill\kern-10pt\dash---P.\thinspace R.\thinspace "Halmos"
 [|halmos-auto|]\g % p232
that has been taught annually
at "Stanford University" since 1970. About fifty students have taken it each
year\dash---juniors and seniors, but mostly graduate students\dash---and
alumni of these classes have begun to spawn similar courses elsewhere.
Thus the time seems ripe to present the
material to a wider audience (including sophomores).

It was a dark and stormy decade when Concrete Mathematics was born.
% Line breaks in the next paragraph are for Amy! -- OP
% (here's what he started with and revised:)
%People everywhere were questioning
%everything about university education. John "Hammersley" wrote an influential
%article ``On the enfeeblement of mathematical skills by `Modern Mathematics'
%and by similar soft intellectual trash in schools and
%universities''~[|hammersley|]; other mathematicians were asking
%``Can mathematics be saved?''~[|spohn|]. One of the present authors (DEK)
%had just published the first volume of a planned series of books on
%{\sl The Art of Computer Programming\/}~[|knuth1|], and he had found
%that the mathematics required for a comprehensive understanding of
%computer programs was quite different from what he'd learned as a
%mathematics major in college. Therefore he decided to introduce a new
Long-held values were constantly being questioned during those turbulent
years; college campuses were hotbeds of controversy. The college curriculum
itself was challenged, and mathematics did not escape scrutiny. John Ham%
mersley had just written a thought-provoking article ``On the enfeeblement of
mathematical skills by `Modern Mathematics' and by similar soft intellectual
trash in schools and universities''\thinspace[|hammersley|]; %
other worried mathematicians [|spohn|]
even asked, ``Can mathematics be saved?''
\g\noindent\llap{``}People do acquire a little brief authority by equipping themselves with
jargon: they can pontificate and air a superficial expertise. But what we should
%ask of the educated mathematician is not what he can speechify about, nor
%even what he knows about the existing corpus of mathematical knowledge,
%but rather what can he now do with his learning and whether he can actually solve
% [changes approved by Hammersley, May 88]
ask of educated mathematicians is not what they can speechify about, nor
even what they know about the existing corpus of mathematical knowledge,
but rather what can they now do with their learning and whether
they can actually solve
mathematical problems arising in practice. In short, we look for deeds not words.''
\par\hfill\kern-15pt\dash---J.\thinspace Hammersley~[|hammersley|]\g
 One of the present authors had
embarked on a series of books called {\sl The Art of Computer
 \null Programming}, and
in writing the first volume he (DEK) had found that there were
 \null mathematical
tools missing from his repertoire; the mathematics he needed for a thorough,
well-grounded understanding of computer programs was quite different from
what he'd learned as a mathematics major in college. So he introduced a new
%"!Knuth, Don" "!philosophy"
course, teaching what he wished somebody had taught him.

\looseness=-1
The course title ``Concrete Mathematics'' was originally intended
as an antidote to ``Abstract Mathematics,\qback'' since concrete
classical results were rap\-idly being swept out of the modern mathematical
curriculum by a new wave of abstract ideas popularly called the
``New Math.\qback'' Abstract mathematics is a wonderful subject, and
there's nothing wrong with it: It's beautiful, general, and useful.
But its adherents had become deluded that the rest of mathematics was
inferior and no longer worthy of attention. The goal of generalization
had become so fashionable that a generation of mathematicians had
become unable to relish beauty in the particular, to enjoy the challenge
of solving quantitative problems, or to appreciate the value of technique.
Abstract mathematics was becoming inbred and losing touch with
reality; mathematical education needed a concrete counterweight
in order to restore a healthy balance.

When DEK taught Concrete Mathematics at Stanford for the first time,
he explained the somewhat strange title by saying that it was his attempt
"!Knuth, Don"
to teach a math course that was hard instead of soft. He announced that,
contrary to the expectations of some of his colleagues, he was
{\it not\/} going to teach the Theory of Aggregates, nor "Stone"'s "!Cech"
Embedding Theorem, nor even the Stone--\v Cech compactification.
\g\noindent\llap{``}The heart of mathematics consists of concrete examples and
concrete problems.''\par\hfill\kern-10pt\dash---P.\thinspace R.\thinspace
 "Halmos" [|halmos-write|]\g % p129
"!Portland cement, \string\see Concrete (in another book)"
(Several students from the civil engineering department got up
and quietly left the room.)

Although Concrete Mathematics began as a reaction against other trends,
the main reasons for its existence were positive instead of negative.
And as the course continued its popular place in the curriculum,
its subject matter ``solidified'' and proved to be valuable in a variety
of new applications. Meanwhile, independent confirmation for the
appropriateness of the name came from another direction, when
\g\noindent\llap{``}It is downright sinful to teach the abstract before the concrete.''\par
\hfill\kern-10pt\dash---Z.\thinspace A.\thinspace Melzak [|melzak|]\g
Z.\thinspace A. "Melzak" published two volumes entitled
{\sl Companion to Concrete Mathematics\/}~[|melzak|].

The material of concrete mathematics may seem at first to be a
disparate bag of tricks, but practice makes it into a disciplined
set of tools. Indeed, the techniques have an underlying unity
and a strong appeal for many people. When another one of the authors
(RLG) first taught the course in 1979, the students had such fun that
"!Graham, Ron"
they decided to hold a class reunion a year later.

But what exactly is Concrete Mathematics? It is a blend
"!Concrete math, defined"
\g Concrete Mathematics is a bridge to~abstract mathematics.\g
of {\sc con}tinuous and dis{\sc crete} mathematics. More
concretely, it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical
formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems.
Once you, the reader, have learned the material in this book,
all you will need is a cool head, a large sheet of paper, and
fairly decent handwriting in order to evaluate horrendous-looking
sums, to solve complex recurrence relations, and to discover
subtle patterns in data. You will be so fluent in algebraic techniques
that you will often find it easier to obtain exact results than to
settle for approximate answers that are valid only in a limiting sense.

The major topics treated in this book include
\g\noindent\llap{``}The advanced reader who skips parts that appear too elementary
may miss more than the less advanced reader who skips parts
that appear too complex.''\par\hfill\dash---G. "P\'olya" [|polya|]\g
 sums, recurrences,
elementary number theory, binomial coefficients,
generating functions, discrete probability, and asymptotic methods.
The emphasis is on manipulative technique rather than on existence
theorems or combinatorial reasoning;
the goal is for each reader to become as familiar with discrete operations
(like the greatest-integer function and finite summation) as a
student of calculus is familiar with continuous operations
(like the absolute-value function and infinite integration).

Notice that this list of topics is quite different from what is
usually taught nowadays in undergraduate courses entitled ``Discrete
Mathematics.\qback'' Therefore the subject needs a distinctive name,
and ``Concrete Mathematics'' has proved to be as suitable as any other.
\g (We're not bold enough to try Distinuous Mathematics.)\g

The original textbook for Stanford's course on concrete mathematics
was the ``Mathematical Preliminaries'' section in {\sl
The Art of Computer Programming\/}~[|knuth1|].
But the presentation in those 110 pages is quite terse, so another
author~(OP) was inspired to draft a lengthy set of supplementary
"!Patashnik, Oren"
notes. The present book is an outgrowth of those notes; it is
an expansion of,
and a more leisurely introduction to, the material of Mathematical
Preliminaries. Some of the more advanced
parts have been omitted; on the other hand, several
topics not found there have been included here so that the story
will be complete.

The authors have enjoyed putting this book together because the subject
began to jell and to take on a life of its own before our eyes; this
\g\noindent\llap{``}\dots\ a concrete life~preserver thrown to students
sinking in a sea of abstraction.''\par\hfill\dash---W. "Gottschalk"\g
book almost seemed to write itself. Moreover, the somewhat unconventional
approaches we have adopted in several places have seemed to fit together
so well, after these years of experience,
that we can't help feeling that this book is a kind of manifesto
about our favorite way to do mathematics. "!philosophy"
So we think the book has turned
out to be a tale of mathematical beauty and surprise, and we hope that
our readers will share at least $\epsilon$ of the pleasure we had
while writing it.

Since this book was born in a university setting, we have tried to
capture the spirit of a contemporary classroom by
adopting an informal style. Some people think that mathematics
is a serious business that must always be cold and dry; but we think
mathematics is fun, and we aren't ashamed to admit the fact.
Why should a strict boundary line be drawn between work and play?
Concrete mathematics is full of appealing patterns; the manipulations
are not always easy, but the answers can be astonishingly
attractive. The joys and sorrows of mathematical work are reflected
explicitly in this book because they are part of our lives.

Students always know better than their teachers, so we have asked
the first students of this material to contribute their
\g Math graffiti:\par\smallskip
"Kilroy" wasn't "Haar".\par
Free the group.\par
Nuke the kernel.\par
Power to the~$n$.\par
$N{=}1\Rightarrow P{=}NP$.\g
frank opinions, as ``graffiti'' in the margins. Some of these marginal
markings are merely corny, some are profound; some of them warn
about ambiguities or obscurities, others are typical comments made
by wise guys in the back row; some are positive, some are negative,
some are zero. But they all are real indications of feelings that
should make the text material easier to assimilate. (The inspiration
for such marginal notes comes from a student handbook entitled
{\sl Approaching Stanford}, where the official university line is
counterbalanced by the remarks of outgoing students. For example,
\g I have only a marginal interest in this subject.\g
"Stanford" says, ``There are a few things you cannot miss in this amorphous
shape which is Stanford''; the margin says, ``Amorphous \dots\ what
the h{\tt***} does that mean? Typical of the pseudo-intellectualism
around here.'' \ Stanford: ``There is no end to the potential
of a group of students living together.'' \ Graffito: ``Stanford dorms
are like zoos without a keeper.'')