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Does combinatorial mean discrete ?

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closed as off topic by Akhil Mathew, Qiaochu Yuan, Eric O. Korman, Larry Wang, Casebash Jul 29 '10 at 21:06


Sorry, I think this question is too vague. Voting to close. It'd help if you explained more specifically what you were looking for (that isn't found in say, Wikipedia's article on combinatorics). –  Akhil Mathew Jul 29 '10 at 16:45
My guess - and this is only a guess - is that there is a class at your university called "combinatorics" and another called "discrete math" and you want to know what the difference is. A class called "discrete math" will do combinatorics, but it will also look at topics like elementary number theory, maybe some cryptography, and maybe some coding theory. Often they are geared towards CS majors. –  Qiaochu Yuan Jul 29 '10 at 18:44

1 Answer 1

Combinatorics is a subset of discrete mathematics.

Combinatorics is the study of the ways discrete structures can be arranged/combined. Discrete mathematics is the study of all aspects of discrete structures (thus including combinatorics).

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