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Computing the continuous discretely. Integer-point enumeration in polyhedra. (English) Zbl 1114.52013
Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics. New York, NY: Springer (ISBN 978-0-387-29139-0/hbk; 978-0-387-46112-0/ebook). xviii, 226 p. (2007).
Pick’s Theorem gives the area of an integral convex polygon in terms of the number of integer points in the interior and the number of integer points on the boundary of the polygon. Intuitively, the number of integer points in a convex $$d$$-dimensional polytope is a good estimate (the “discrete volume”) for the $$d$$-dimensional volume of the polytope. This book is concerned with the mathematics of that connection between the discrete and the continuous, with significance for geometry, number theory and combinatorics.
The authors give a coherent and tightly developed picture that encompasses the Frobenius coin-exchange problem, Bernoulli polynomials, Ehrhart polynomials for lattice point enumeration, Dehn-Sommerville relations on numbers of faces of polytopes, magic squares, the Birkhoff-von Neumann polytope, finite Fourier series, Dedekind sums, Brion’s Theorem on decomposition of polytopes, Euler-Maclaurin summation, volume via solid angles, and Green’s Theorem in the plane.
The book is written as an accessible and engaging textbook, with many examples, historical notes, pithy quotes, commentary integrating the material, exercises, open problems and an extensive bibliography.

##### MSC:
 52B20 Lattice polytopes in convex geometry (including relations with commutative algebra and algebraic geometry) 11P21 Lattice points in specified regions 05A15 Exact enumeration problems, generating functions 11F20 Dedekind eta function, Dedekind sums 11H06 Lattices and convex bodies (number-theoretic aspects) 52-01 Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to convex and discrete geometry 11-01 Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to number theory 05-01 Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to combinatorics 52B05 Combinatorial properties of polytopes and polyhedra (number of faces, shortest paths, etc.)
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