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Discrete Mathematics with Applications
Susanna Epp's DISCRETE MATHEMATICS WITH APPLICATIONS, FOURTH EDITION provides a clear introduction to discrete mathematics. Renowned for her lucid, accessible prose, Epp explains complex, abstract concepts with clarity and precision. This book presents not only the major themes of discrete mathematics, but also the reasoning that underlies mathematical thought. Students develop the ability to think abstractly as they study the ideas of logic and proof. While learning about such concepts as logic circuits and computer addition, algorithm analysis, recursive thinking, computability, automata, cryptography, and combinatorics, students discover that the ideas of discrete mathematics underlie and are essential to the science and technology of the computer age. Overall, Epp's emphasis on reasoning provides students with a strong foundation for computer science and upper-level mathematics courses.
820 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
171 people are currently reading
1451 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
October 29, 2014
By itself, I think this book is lacking something. However, when read in parallel with Rosen's book (I know, two discrete math books simultaneously is a recipe for insanity) it shows it's true value. Epp explains some things very well but at the end of the day she's a math guru, and as with almost all math gurus I've encountered, she has difficulty packaging complex subjects into digestible, teachable chunks. She's better than Rosen, I'll give her that.
It's unfortunate that the selection of textbooks is so limited in this field. Every instructor that I've had for DM explains the subject better than textbook authors by a wide mile, but writing 1,000 pages on DM is probably too daunting a task for them so their wisdom is never documented. Instead, we keep turning to Rosen and Epp.
Oh well, it's only a class.
It's unfortunate that the selection of textbooks is so limited in this field. Every instructor that I've had for DM explains the subject better than textbook authors by a wide mile, but writing 1,000 pages on DM is probably too daunting a task for them so their wisdom is never documented. Instead, we keep turning to Rosen and Epp.
Oh well, it's only a class.
March 9, 2016
This is literally the best beginners book on discrete math you can find. I have looked into dozens of different materials and this one is proved to be the best. Very detailed and intuitive explanations, 2000+ exercises with answers in total. This is THE book on Discrete Mathematics!
December 22, 2018
Good book for self learners.
December 25, 2022
Wauw, Finishing a math textbook during Christmas sounds painfully sad... haha
It's a good book where the difficulty of exercises progress really nicely. Some paragraphs do include lots of information and could've or should've been split into smaller more digestible chunks. Nonetheless, if you keep notes, it shouldn't be a very big problem.
The chapter about algorithm efficiency was kind of difficult to understand beyond the basics, whether that's because of me or the book... I'll find out when I'll move on to the next one.
It's a good book where the difficulty of exercises progress really nicely. Some paragraphs do include lots of information and could've or should've been split into smaller more digestible chunks. Nonetheless, if you keep notes, it shouldn't be a very big problem.
The chapter about algorithm efficiency was kind of difficult to understand beyond the basics, whether that's because of me or the book... I'll find out when I'll move on to the next one.
June 27, 2023
On today's installment of "Rating my college textbooks because if I have to read them, they better count toward my Goodreads challenge!" we have... drum roll please... my discrete structures textbook! Discrete structures is an interesting class because, every time I bring it up, people ask what it is and I have to explain that I still don't know. That being said, Susanna Epp slayed. While I'm still not sure I understand anything from this class, this textbook did kind of save my life. First of all, it held a lot of the homework answers (a much-needed bonus), and the chapters were helpful for my understanding of the concepts. While I could not be more thrilled that this class is over, Susanna does deserve thanks for this one!
June 13, 2023
I eventually devolved into just skimming the rest of this textbook. It's simply too long and dense to carefully read through and practice unless you dedicate a year or more to it. It also didn't help that almost every topic was explained via unintuitive set theory notation, when I'm guessing there are more colloquial ways to teach each unit.
This book is really only for people with a strong drive and passion to learn discrete mathematics. But even then, most would learn this stuff more accessibly from college professors, or even good YouTube teachers. I'm starting to understand that self-studying math has to be your main hobby if you're going to make any real progress at it. I don't want it to be my main hobby, so I don't think I can go much further.
This book is really only for people with a strong drive and passion to learn discrete mathematics. But even then, most would learn this stuff more accessibly from college professors, or even good YouTube teachers. I'm starting to understand that self-studying math has to be your main hobby if you're going to make any real progress at it. I don't want it to be my main hobby, so I don't think I can go much further.
September 15, 2021
This book is too wordy and not rigorous. The author fills pages by explaining basic subjects that need only a paragraph or two. It's like written for IQ 80 or less.
The entire content of this 1000 pages book can fit nicely under 300 pages.
I am new to discrete math, and I read half of this book in 2 days!
It's a shame that many classes use this book. It seems a strong relationship happened between teachers and publishers.
The entire content of this 1000 pages book can fit nicely under 300 pages.
I am new to discrete math, and I read half of this book in 2 days!
It's a shame that many classes use this book. It seems a strong relationship happened between teachers and publishers.
March 8, 2015
Clear and concise, few textual errors (in the latest edition) for a book of this size. Decent exercises. Would recommend as a relatively breezy introduction to proof-writing and select topics (logic, graph theory, etc.), potentially a good supplement for more rigorous or challenging texts.
May 23, 2024
Comprehensive guide to discrete mathematics.
December 12, 2023
such an interesting topic that i wasn’t expecting to like as much as i did! the only thing i didn’t really like was that a lot of the concepts and names are similar which was confusing at times, and there were so many new symbols to learn.
i thought the textbook was well-written and in-depth. i also really liked how the textbook was structured (there were a lot of mini notes on the side that provided extra detail and/or clarification) which facilitated learning and understanding. my only complaints are that overall the textbook was a bit too wordy and dense (although this could have been because of the topics that were covered), wasn’t very rigorous, and there were some unnecessary parts like history and biographies of the people who invented the concepts/terms which were completely irrelevant to learning the concepts (but this was honestly fine because i would just skip reading them! the author is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject, so go off).
i thought the textbook was well-written and in-depth. i also really liked how the textbook was structured (there were a lot of mini notes on the side that provided extra detail and/or clarification) which facilitated learning and understanding. my only complaints are that overall the textbook was a bit too wordy and dense (although this could have been because of the topics that were covered), wasn’t very rigorous, and there were some unnecessary parts like history and biographies of the people who invented the concepts/terms which were completely irrelevant to learning the concepts (but this was honestly fine because i would just skip reading them! the author is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject, so go off).
June 10, 2019
I don't read too many textbooks that are actual textbooks, but this was a necessary read as I could not quite understand my professor's instructions. I actually read this one and made a wonderful grade in my graduate course because of it. I found some concepts and problems to be too simple and other too complex for what I read in the chapter. I'm very glad that the author made this readable as there are some mathematics textbooks, specifically one of calculus textbooks, that make it challenging on students to really understand the material.
January 12, 2024
wow susanna u go girlie. this textbook was an ABSOLUTE SLAY! saved me during discrete mathematics, it was packed to the brimm with problems and great, thorough explanations. I did deduct a star cuz this textbook falls flat at some points -- ex its explanation of the tower of hanoi sequence. i also think the reiteration of everything in chapter 6 of content in chapter 1 was unnecessary, it would have been fine to do a small refresher and then move on to the new concepts introduced. overall she ate tho
i read the 5th edition btws
i read the 5th edition btws
February 11, 2022
Good book for the beginning
Read
May 2, 2022Trying to reteach myself math, I really enjoyed it.
January 23, 2023
Great book, especially for the self learners. The book includes many example and the pacing between dificualtly is great.
April 11, 2023
text book for cs225 (osu)
May 31, 2024
so awesome learned lots. would read again def
December 16, 2024
This book gave me my highest grade when studying Software Engineering. Thanks!
December 14, 2025
Greatest introduction to real mathematics ever. Praises to chef Ballew 🙏
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January 18, 2026The most useful and painful form of “math”
Yes, it is important
Yes, it is important
February 11, 2022
The 5-star rating isn't for the whole book (I didn't read all of it) but having listened to many online clownish debaters pretend to have a clue about logic, I'm glad such an accessible reference exists. Seriously, don't open plato.stanford.edu or some flashy looking YouTube video; 2.1-2.3 of this text is great a source--with practice problems--for grasping some basics in propositional logic.
August 12, 2008
As a teacher I would love this book because of its tome-like nature, but as a student I found it a bit annoying to only cover 10% of the book for spending 50 bucks. There are books that teach proof techniques much more efficiently and cover only what is important and reasonable for one semester. Also...this is called discrete MATH not computer science!! I want math problems not how to write an algorithm.
December 18, 2015
I've been reading and doing problem sets from this book for about 6 weeks now as part of a foundation course for a grad school program. I don't have much experience w/ this level of math but I find this book very interesting. Some things can be unnecessarily complicated. I was sometimes confused by similiar names to describe different variables within a problem. Why not just use very distinct names?
February 29, 2016
Some may think it strange to give a text book 5 stars, but this book is brilliant. I read it over the break cover to cover. If you are studying programming and computer science, this book is invaluable. The author's writing style is so clear and careful. She seems genuinely interested in helping and inspiring students.
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June 29, 2015Read this for my discrete maths course. Actually pretty interesting (actually enjoyed taking notes for it, for once), even if a lot of it we didn't actually need in class. Make sure you get the solutions manual, too.
December 5, 2011
I am very satisfied with this textbook. It is easy to understand and has helped me a lot in my discrete structures class.
October 6, 2012
Magically clear and fun. Everyone should read.
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October 19, 2012nice
July 26, 2013
Best book on discrete math. Learnt a lot! Will also come handy for reference.
April 29, 2014
Such a tome. It took awhile to finish, but was worth it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews