Combinatorists owe much to Gain-Carlo Rota, already a "respectable" mathematician when he interested himself in combinatorics and embarked on his gallant crusade to unify the subject which almost everyone regarded as being at best a bag of clever isolated tricks; to reverse the tide of abstraction in mathematics; to return to the concreteness of a century ago.... Rota observes that combinatorics is providing the essential continuing link between mathematics and the sciences: biology (structure of large molecules), linguistics (context-free languages, automata theory), physics (statistical mechanics, phase transition problems, elementary particles).
Combinatorists utang upang makakuha ng maraming-Carlo Rota, na isang "kagalang-galang" dalubbilang kapag siya interesado sa combinatorics kanyang sarili at sa kanyang embarked galante krusada upang papag-isahin ang mga paksa na kung saan halos lahat regarded bilang pinakamahusay na sa isang bag ng matalino ilang tricks; sa reverse ang laki ng tubig ng abstraction sa matematika; upang bumalik sa concreteness ng isang daang taon na nakaraan.... Rota observes na combinatorics ay nagbibigay ng mga mahahalagang patuloy na link sa pagitan ng matematika at siyensiya ng: biology (structure ng mga malalaking molecule), lingguwistika (context-free wika, automata theory), physics (statistical mechanics, phase transition problema, elementarya particles).