Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. In algebra and in particular in algebraic combinatorics, the ring of symmetric functions, is a specific limit of the rings of symmetric polynomials in n indeterminates, as n goes to infinity. This ring serves as universal structure in which relations between symmetric polynomials can be expressed in a way independent of the number n of indeterminates (but its elements are neither polynomials nor functions). Among other things, this ring plays an important role in the representation theory of the symmetric groups.