http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.classic.problems.

html

Permutations and Combinations

Dr. Math FAQ || Classic Problems || Formulas || Search Dr. Math || Dr. Math Home

For a basic review of concepts, see Introduction to Probability. And see Fast Food
Combinations: How many possible combinations can be made from a special menu of
eight items?

Permutations

Suppose we want to find the number of ways to arrange the three letters in the word CAT in
different two-letter groups where CA is different from AC and there are no repeated
letters.

Because order matters, we're finding the number of permutations of size 2 that can be taken
from a set of size 3. This is often written 3_P_2. We can list them as:

CA CT AC AT TC TA

Now let's suppose we have 10 letters and want to make groupings of 4 letters. It's harder to
list all those permutations. To find the number of four-letter permutations that we can
make from 10 letters without repeated letters (10_P_4), we'd like to have a formula
because there are 5040 such permutations and we don't want to write them all out!

For four-letter permutations, there are 10 possibilities for the first letter, 9 for the second, 8
for the third, and 7 for the last letter.( 4 places - - - - first place can be filled by one of
the letter out of 10 so 10 possibilities, similarly 2nd place got 9 possibilites…as first place
 is already filled by one of the letter..) We can find the total number of different four-letter
permutations by multiplying 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 = 5040. This is part of a factorial (see note).

To arrive at 10 x 9 x 8 x 7, we need to divide 10 factorial (10 because there are ten objects)
by (10-4) factorial (subtracting from the total number of objects from which we're
choosing the number of objects in each permutation). You can see below that we can
divide the numerator by 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1:

10! 10! 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

10_P_4 = ------- = ---- = --------------------------------------

(10 - 4)! 6! 6x5x4x3x2x1

= 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 = 5040

From this we can see that the more general formula for finding the number of permutations
of size k taken from n objects is:

n!

n_P_k = --------

(n - k)!

For our CAT example, we have:

3! 3x2x1

3_P_2 = ---- = ----------- = 6

1! 1

We can use any one of the three letters in CAT as the first member of a permutation. There
are three choices for the first letter: C, A, or T. After we've chosen one of these, only two
choices remain for the second letter. To find the number of permutations we multiply: 3 x
2 = 6.
Note: What's a factorial? A factorial is written using an exclamation point - for example, 10
factorial is written 10! - and means multiply 10 times 9 times 8 times 7... all the way
down to 1.

Combinations

When we want to find the number of combinations of size 2 without repeated letters that can
be made from the three letters in the word CAT, order doesn't matter; AT is the same as
TA. We can write out the three combinations of size two that can be taken from this set
of size three:

CA CT AT

We say '3 choose 2' and write 3_C_2. But now let's imagine that we have 10 letters from
which we wish to choose 4. To calculate 10_C_4, which is 210, we don't want to have to
write all the combinations out!

Since we already know that 10_P_4 = 5040, we can use this information to find 10_C_4.
Let's think about how we got that answer of 5040. We found all the possible
combinations of 4 that can be taken from 10 (10_C_4). Then we found all the ways that
four letters in those groups of size 4 can be arranged: 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 4! = 24. Thus the
total number of permutations of size 4 taken from a set of size 10 is equal to 4! times the
total number of combinations of size 4 taken from a set of size 10: 10_P_4 = 4! x
10_C_4.

When we divide both sides of this equation by 4! we see that the total number of
combinations of size 4 taken from a set of size 10 is equal to the number of permutations
of size 4 taken from a set of size 10 divided by 4!. This makes it possible to write a
formula for finding 10_C_4:

10_P_4 10! 10!

10_C_4 = -------- = ------- = ----------

 4! 4! x 6! 4!(10-4)!

10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

= --------------------------------------

4 x 3 x 2 x 1 (6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1)

10 x 9 x 8 x 7 5040

= -------------- = ------ = 210

4x3x2x1 24

More generally, the formula for finding the number of combinations of k objects you can
choose from a set of n objects is:

n!

n_C_k = ----------

k!(n - k)!

For our CAT example, we do the following:

3! 3x2x1 6

3_C_2 = ------ = ----------- = --- = 3

2!(1!) 2 x 1 (1) 2

Pascal's Triangle
We can also use Pascal's Triangle to find combinations:

Row 0 1

Row 1 1 1

Row 2 1 2 1

Row 3 1 3 3 1

Row 4 1 4 6 4 1

Row 5 1 5 10 10 5 1

Row 6 1 6 15 20 15 6 1

Pascal's Triangle continues on forever - it can have an infinite number of rows. Each number
is the sum of the two numbers just above it. For the 1 at the beginning of each row, we
imagine that Pascal's triangle is surrounded by zeros: to get the first 1 in any row except
row 0, add a zero from the upper left to the 1 above and to the right. To get the 3 in row
4, add the 1 left and above to the 2 right and above.

To find the number of combinations of two objects that can be taken from a set of three
objects, all we need to do is look at the second entry in row 3 (remember that the 1 at the
top of the triangle is always counted as row zero and that a 1 on the lefthand side of the
triangle is always counted as entry zero for that row).

Looking at the triangle, we see that the second entry in row 3 is 3, which is the same answer
we got when we wrote down all the two-letter combinations for the letters in the word
CAT.

Row 0 1

Row 1 1 1

Row 2 1 2 1

Row 3 1 3 3 1
Suppose we want to find 10_C_4? To use Pascal's Triangle we would need to write out 10
rows of the triangle. This is a good time to use a formula.

More generally, to find n_C_k ("n choose k"), just choose entry k in row n of Pascal's
Triangle.

One of the hardest parts about doing problems that use permutations and combinations is
deciding which formula to use.