Discrete Mathematics: An Open Introduction

This gentle introduction to discrete mathematics is written for first and second year math majors, especially those who intend to teach. The text began as a set of lecture notes for the discrete mathematics course at the University of Northern Colorado. This course serves both as an introduction to topics in discrete math and as the “introduction to proof” course for math majors. The course is usually taught with a large amount of student inquiry, and this text is written to help facilitate this.

Four main topics are covered: counting, sequences, logic, and graph theory. Along the way proofs are introduced, including proofs by contradiction, proofs by induction, and combinatorial proofs. The book contains over 470 exercises, including 275 with solutions and over 100 with hints. There are also Investigate! activities throughout the text to support active, inquiry based learning.