Stable Marriage and Its Relation to Other Combinatorial Problems

The initial French version of this text was a series of expository lectures that were given at the University of Montreal in November 1975. The book uses the appealing theory of stable marriage to introduce and illustrate a variety of important concepts and techniques of computer science and mathematics: data structures, control structures, combinatorics, probability, analysis, algebra, and especially the analysis of algorithms. The presentation is elementary, and the topics are interesting to nonspecialists. The theory is quite beautiful and developing rapidly. Exercises with answers, an annotated bibliography, and research problems are included. The text would be appropriate as supplementary reading for undergraduate research seminars or courses in algorithmic analysis and for graduate courses in combinatorial algorithms, operations research, economics, or analysis of algorithms. Donald E. Knuth was this year's recipient of the prestigious Kyoto Award in the Advanced Technology category for his tremendous contributions to the development of 20th century computer sciences through both research and education. The Kyoto Award is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement.