Combinatorics is a branch ofmathematics that studies finite collections of objects that satisfy specified criteria, and is in particular concerned with "counting" the objects in those collections (enumerative combinatorics) and with deciding whether certain "optimal" objects exist (extremal combinatorics). One of the most prominent combinatorialists of recent times wasGian-Carlo Rota, who helped formalize the subject beginning in the 1960s. The problem-solverPaul Erdős worked mainly on extremal questions. The study of how to count objects is sometimes thought of separately as the field ofenumeration.
