The Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A and Series B, are mathematical journal

Mathematical journal

A mathematics journal is a scientific journal which publishes exclusively mathematics papers. A practical definition of the current state of mathematics, as a research field, is that it consists of theorems with proofs published in a reputable mathematics journal, and which usually have passed...

s specializing in combinatorics

Combinatorics

Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of finite or countable discrete structures. Aspects of combinatorics include counting the structures of a given kind and size , deciding when certain criteria can be met, and constructing and analyzing objects meeting the criteria ,...

 and related areas. They are published by Elsevier

Elsevier

Elsevier is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere....

. Series A is concerned primarily with structure

Mathematical structure

In mathematics, a structure on a set, or more generally a type, consists of additional mathematical objects that in some manner attach to the set, making it easier to visualize or work with, or endowing the collection with meaning or significance....

s, designs, and applications of combinatorics. Series B is concerned primarily with graph

Graph theory

In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of...

 and matroid theory. The two series are two of the leading journals in the field and are widely known as "JCTA" and "JCTB".

The journal was founded in 1966 by Frank Harary

Frank Harary

Frank Harary was a prolific American mathematician, who specialized in graph theory. He was widely recognized as one of the "fathers" of modern graph theory....

 and Gian-Carlo Rota

Gian-Carlo Rota

Gian-Carlo Rota was an Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher.-Life:Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy...

. Originally there was only one journal, which was split into two parts in 1971 as the field grew rapidly.

Influential articles

Influential articles that appeared in the journal include Katona

Gyula O. H. Katona

Gyula O. H. Katona is a Hungarian mathematician known for his work in combinatorial set theory, and especially for the Kruskal–Katona theorem and his elegant proof of the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem...

's elegant proof of the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem

Erdos–Ko–Rado theorem

In combinatorics, the Erdős–Ko–Rado theorem of Paul Erdős, Chao Ko, and Richard Rado is a theorem on hypergraphs, specifically, on uniform hypergraphs of rank r.The theorem is as follows...

 and a series of papers spanning over 500 pages, appearing from 1983 to 2004, by Neil Robertson

Neil Robertson (mathematician)

G. Neil Robertson is a mathematician working mainly in topological graph theory, currently a distinguished professor at the Ohio State University. He earned his Ph.D. in 1969 at the University of Waterloo under his doctoral advisor William Tutte. According to the criteria of the Erdős Number...

 and Paul D. Seymour on the topic of graph minors

Minor (graph theory)

In graph theory, an undirected graph H is called a minor of the graph G if H is isomorphic to a graph that can be obtained by zero or more edge contractions on a subgraph of G....

, which together constitute the proof of the graph minor theorem.

A selection of a few influential articles is listed below.