First Intermediate Book Out

by rrusczyk, Sep 24, 2007, 4:40 PM

Intermediate Counting & Probability by DPatrick.

Check it out! (Oh yeah, and buy it!)

Click the link above to read more about the book.

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Damn, here comes the carrying work ...

by Valentin Vornicu, Sep 24, 2007, 6:21 PM

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Looks good (literally, too. The cover art is cool

)! I'm not gonna' get it right now (don't ban my account!), but I'll probably get it eventually.

by Nerd_of_the_Ages, Sep 24, 2007, 10:35 PM

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Looks good

by pianoforte, Sep 24, 2007, 11:44 PM

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It looks great. I think I'll order my copy tonight. If I didn't fully master part of the last few chapters of the Introduction book, should I buy it for review, too? or will the first chapter of the new book be sufficient for that purpose?

by emannes, Sep 25, 2007, 12:20 AM

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Nice.

It doesn't really state what level of competition this is appropriate for, though...

by Temperal, Sep 25, 2007, 12:21 AM

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the index is a pretty good indicator.

some of the stuff like graph theory isn't all that useful on the aime, the imo did have two graph theory problems (#6 was killed with combinatorial nullensatz), and according to wenyu usamo #4 could be one-lined with some other obscure theorem, but I doubt many obscure theorems are stated in the book.

however, bijections and recursion and stuff are very useful on the aime and similarly leveled contests (hmmt combinatorics especially).

i'm placing my order right now.

by 13375P34K43V312, Sep 25, 2007, 12:29 AM

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emmanes: You should have a good handle on using combinations in counting problems, and on basic probability, before taking on the Intermediate book. If you haven't mastered these topics, start with the Intro book.

Temperal: This book will help with hard AMC problems, AIME problems, and beginning Olympiad problems. It will also make a college discrete math class very easy.

by rrusczyk, Sep 25, 2007, 5:32 PM

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13375P34K43V312 wrote:

some of the stuff like graph theory isn't all that useful on the aime, the imo did have two graph theory problems (#6 was killed with combinatorial nullensatz), and according to wenyu usamo #4 could be one-lined with some other obscure theorem, but I doubt many obscure theorems are stated in the book.

# 6 on the IMO wasn't graph theory at all...
Number 4 can't actually be trivialized by Mader's theorem like Wenyu said, it just shows that a graph with 8028 and larger is impossible, but one would still need to show that 8026/8027 are impossible, and showing for 8026 can be generalized trivially.

Also, graph theory is totally useful on things like the AIME, it just isn't necessary

by diophantient, Sep 25, 2007, 8:11 PM

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Wait isn't graph theory like Euler Ciruits and that sort of stuff?

by #H34N1, Sep 25, 2007, 8:46 PM

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What other intermediate books are you planning on coming out with the next few years and in what order?

by SplashD, Sep 25, 2007, 9:29 PM

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Intermediate Algebra will be out next, probably in about 6 months (hopefully a little sooner).

Intermediate Trig/Complex Numbers (and maybe an introduction to linear algebra) will come out probably (hopefully?) in early 2009.

Other topics that we will hit in the next few years:

Calculus
Intermediate Geometry (which will include a fair amount of Olympiad material)
Linear Algebra

We're still kicking around ideas for how to approach a next level of number theory. One idea DPatrick threw out that's initially appealing is to couple it with an introduction to modern algebra (group theory and such). But we haven't made any decisions on that yet.

by rrusczyk, Sep 25, 2007, 9:42 PM