Permutations and Combinations

An arrangement of n distinct objects in a specific order is called a permutation. For

example, if an art dealer had 3 paintings, say A, B, and C, to arrange in a row on a wall, there
would be 6 distinct ways to display the paintings. They are:
ABC BAC CAB
ACB BCA CBA
The total number of different ways can be found using the fundamental counting rule. There are
3 ways to select the first object, 2 ways to select the second object, and 1 way to select the third
object. Hence, there are 3* 2*1 = 6 different ways to arrange three objects in a row on a shelf.
Another way to solve this kind of problem is to use permutations. The number of permutations of
n objects using all the objects is n!

Sometimes when selecting objects, the order in which the objects are selected is not important.
For example, when five cards are dealt in a poker game, the order in which you receive the cards
is not important. When 5 balls are selected in a lottery, the order in which they are selected is not
important. These situations differ from permutations in which order is important and are called
combinations. A combination is a selection of objects without regard to the order in which they
are selected.
Suppose two letters are selected from the four letters, A, B, C, and D. The different permutations
are shown on the left and the different combinations are shown on the right.

Notice that in a permutation AB differs from BA, but in a combination AB is the same as BA.
The combination rule is used to find the number of ways to select objects without regard to
order.

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Answers

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5. (a) (i) 18 C 6 = 18,564

(ii) Selections with Harry Potter book = 18,564.
Selections without Harry Potter book = 17 C 6 (exclude the Harry Potter book, but
still choose six books, only this time from a total of 17 books.
17
C 6 = 12, 376
Therefore, selections without Harry Potter book = 6188
Alternatively, ignoring the Harry Potter book and selecting 5 from 18 gives, 18 C 5 = 6188.

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