Permutations and

Combinations
Rosen 4.3
 Permutations

• A permutation of a set of distinct

objects is an ordered arrangement
these objects.
• An ordered arrangement of r elements
of a set is called an r-permutation.
• The number of r-permutations of a set
with n elements is denoted by P(n,r).
A = {1,2,3,4} 2-permutations of A include
1,2; 2,1; 1,3; 2,3; etc…
 Counting Permutations

• Using the product rule we can find P(n,r)

= n*(n-1)*(n-2)* …*(n-r+1)
= n!/(n-r)!
How many 2-permutations are there for
the set {1,2,3,4}? P(4,2)
 Combinations

• An r-combination of elements of a set is an

unordered selection of r element from the set.
(i.e., an r-combination is simply a subset of
the set with r elements).
Let A={1,2,3,4} 3-combinations of A are
{1,2,3}, {1,2,4}, {1,3,4}, {2,3,4}(same as {3,2,4})
• The number of r-combinations of a set with n
distinct elements is denoted by C(n,r).
 Example
Let A = {1,2,3}
2-permutations of A are: 1,2 2,1 1,3 3,1 2,3 3,2
6 total. Order is important

2-combinations of A are: {1,2}, {1,3}, {2,3}

3 total. Order is not important
If we counted the number of permutations of each 2-
combination we could figure out P(3,2)!
 How to compute C(n,r)
• To find P(n,r), we could first find C(n,r),
then order each subset of r elements to
count the number of different orderings.
P(n,r) = C(n,r)P(r,r).
• So C(n,r) = P(n,r) / P(r,r)
 A club has 25 members.

• How many ways are there to choose four

members of the club to serve on an executive
committee?
– Order not important
– C(25,4) = 25!/21!4! = 25*24*23*22/4*3*2*1
=25*23*22 = 12,650
• How many ways are there to choose a
president, vice president, secretary, and
treasurer of the club?
– Order is important
– P(25,4) = 25!/21! = 303,600
 The English alphabet contains 21 consonants
and 5 vowels. How many strings of six lower
case letters of the English alphabet contain:
• exactly one vowel?
• exactly 2 vowels
• at least 1 vowel
• at least 2 vowels
 The English alphabet contains 21 consonants
and 5 vowels. How many strings of six lower
case letters of the English alphabet contain:
• exactly one vowel?
Note that strings can have repeated letters!
We need to choose the position for the vowel
C(6,1) = 6!/1!5! This can be done 6 ways.
Choose which vowel to use.
This can be done in 5 ways.
Each of the other 5 positions can contain any of the 21
consonants (not distinct).
There are 215 ways to fill the rest of the string.
6*5*215
 The English alphabet contains 21 consonants
and 5 vowels. How many strings of six lower
case letters of the English alphabet contain:
• exactly 2 vowels?
Choose position for the vowels.
C(6,2) = 6!/2!4! = 15
Choose the two vowels.
5 choices for each of 2 positions = 52
Each of the other 4 positions can contain any of
21 consonants.
214
15*52*214
 The English alphabet contains 21 consonants
and 5 vowels. How many strings of six lower
case letters of the English alphabet contain:
• at least 1 vowel
Count the number of strings with no
vowels and subtract this from the total
number of strings.
266 - 216
 The English alphabet contains 21 consonants
and 5 vowels. How many strings of six lower
case letters of the English alphabet contain:
• at least 2 vowels
Compute total number of strings and
subtract number of strings with no
vowels and the number of strings with
exactly 1 vowel.
266 - 216 - 6*5*215
 Corollary 1: Let n and r be nonnegative
integers with r  n. Then C(n,r) = C(n,n-r)

Proof:
C(n,r) = n!/r!(n-r)!
C(n,n-r) = n!/(n-r)!(n-(n-r))! = n!/r!(n-r)!
 Binomial Coefficient

Another notation for C(n,r) is . This

number is also called a binomial
coefficient.

These numbers occur as coefficients in the

expansions of powers of binomial
expressions such as (a+b)n.
 Pascal’s Identity
Let n and k be positive integers with n  k.
Then C(n+1,k) = C(n, k-1) + C(n,k).
Proof:
Let n be a positive integer. Then

Proof: We know from set theory that the

number of subsets in a set of size n is
2n. We also know that C(n,k) is the
number of subsets of a set of size n
that are of size k.
counts the number of
subsets
of every size from 0 (empty set) to n.
Therefore the sum must add up to 2n.
 Vandermonde’s Identity

Proof: Suppose there are n items in one set and m

items in a second set. Then the total number of
ways to pick r elements from the union of these sets
is C(m+n,r).
Another way to pick r elements from the union is to
pick k elements from the first set and then r-k
elements from the second set, where 0  k  r. There
are C(n,k) ways to pick the k elements from the first
set and C(m,r-k) ways to pick the rest of the
elements from the second set.
Proof: Suppose there are n items in one set and m
items in a second set. Then the total number of ways
to pick r elements from the union of these sets is
C(m+n,r).
Another way to pick r elements from the union is to pick
k elements from the first set and then r-k elements
from the second set, where 0  k  r. For any k,there
are C(n,k) ways to pick the k elements from the first
set and C(m,r-k) ways to pick the rest of the elements
from the second set. By the product rule there are
C(m,r-k)C(n,k) ways to pick r elements for a particular
k. For all possible values of k
 Pascal’s Triangle

1 1

1 2 1

1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1

n’th row, Cnk = k = 0, 1, …, n

 Binomial Theorem

Let x and y be variables and let n be a

positive integer. Then