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Lecture 2 Rules of Counting

The document discusses rules of counting, permutations, and combinations. It provides examples and explanations of: 1) Counting the number of ways two independent events can occur together by multiplying their individual possibilities. 2) Factorial notation and examples of calculating permutations and combinations. 3) The difference between permutations, which consider order, and combinations, which do not, illustrated through examples of forming words from letters and selecting crews from people.

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yaseen wazir
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47 views

Lecture 2 Rules of Counting

The document discusses rules of counting, permutations, and combinations. It provides examples and explanations of: 1) Counting the number of ways two independent events can occur together by multiplying their individual possibilities. 2) Factorial notation and examples of calculating permutations and combinations. 3) The difference between permutations, which consider order, and combinations, which do not, illustrated through examples of forming words from letters and selecting crews from people.

Uploaded by

yaseen wazir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rules of Counting

.
Count the number of ways two
independent events can be
performed
If event A can occur in n1 ways and event B can
occur in n2 ways, then the number of ways these
events can occur together = n1*n2
Example : Rules of Counting

• Suppose that you want to dress up by


choosing from 10 formal shirts (tuxedo
shirts), 15 dress pants, and 7 neckties.
You can dress up in 10*15*7=1050 ways
☺
Factorial Operator
• The Symbol n! is read as factorial of n and
is computed as follows
• n!= n(n-1)(n-2)(n-3)…..(3)(2)(1)
• 6!=(6)(5)(4)(3)(2)(1)=720
Example. The simplest protein molecule in biology is called
vasopressin and is composed of 8 amino acids that are
chemically bound together in a particular order. The order in
which these amino acids occur is of vital importance to the
proper functioning of vasopressin. If these 8 amino acids were
placed in a hat and drawn out randomly one by one, how many
different arrangements of these 8 amino acids are possible?
Solution: Let A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H symbolize the 8 amino acids.
They must fill 8 slots: ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ . There
are 8 choices for the first position, leaving 7 choices for the
second slot, 6 choices for the third slot and so on. The number
of different orderings is
8(7)(6)(5)(4)(3)(2)(1)=8! =40,320.
Permutations and Combinations
Order Matters; Permutation
Example
Permutation Example 1

11880 ways
Permutation Example 2
Combination Vs. Permutation
Order Matters, Repletion allowed
• Suppose that you want to analyze in how many ways can a
car registration number ( having 4 digits) be issued.
• We know that there are total 10 digits ( 0, 1,2,…..9)
• Note that repetition is possible (for instance a car
registration number may be 0112). Order matters because
1122 is different from 2211.
• So, total
Order Matters, Repletion allowed
• Suppose that you want to analyze in how many ways can a
car registration number ( having 4 digits) be issued.
Suppose that a digit can only be used only once.
• We know that there are total 10 digits ( 0, 1,2,…..9)
• Note that repetition is not possible. Order matters because
1234 is different from 4123 or 2341.
• So, total ways are
Two problems illustrating combinations and permutations.

Consider the following two problems:


1) Consider the set { p , e , n} How many two-letter
“words” (including nonsense words) can be formed from
the members of this set?
We will list all possibilities: pe, pn, en, ep, np, ne , a total of
6.

2) Now consider the set consisting of three males: {Paul,


Ed, Nick} For simplicity, we will denote the set { p, e, n}
How many two-man crews can be selected from this set?
3) Answer: pe (Paul, Ed), pn (Paul, Nick) and en (Ed, Nick)
and that is all!
Difference between permutations and combinations

• The difference between the two problems is this:


• Both problems involved counting the numbers of arrangements of the
same set {p , e , n}, taken 2 elements at a time, without allowing
repetition. However, in the first problem, the order of the
arrangements mattered since pe and ep are two different “words”. In
the second problem, the order did not matter since pe and ep
represented the same two-man crew. So we counted this only once.
• The first example was concerned with counting the number of
permutations of 3 objects taken 2 at a time.

• The second example was concerned with the number of combinations


of 3 objects taken 2 at a time
Combinations or Permutations?
• 1. In how many ways can you choose 5
out of 10 friends to invite to a dinner
party?
• Solution: Does the order of selection
matter? If you choose friends in the order
A,B,C,D,E or A,C,B,D,E the same set of
5 was chosen, so we conclude that the
order of selection does not matter. We
will use the formula for combinations
since we are concerned with how many
subsets of size 5 we can select from a set
of 10.
• C(10,5) =
For practice see
• Probability and statistics by example.
Basic probability and statistics, by Suhov
Y., Kelbert M. Publisher: CUP, Year: 2005
• Downloadable from Genesis Library

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