Counting Rules

Useful in
Probability
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- Let’s look at the die toss from a slightly different

perspective. Because there are six outcomes that should
be equally likely for a balanced die, the probability of A,
observe an even number, is
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- This “definition” of probability will work for any random

phenomenon resulting in a finite sample space with
equally likely outcomes. Thus, it is mportant to be able to
count the number of possible outcomes for a random
selection.
- The number of outcomes can easily become quite large,
and counting them is difficult without a few counting
rules. Four such rules are presented in this section.
PRODUCT RULE
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

EXAMPLE 4.12
- Suppose a quality control inspector examines two manufactured
items selected from a production line. Item 1 can be defective or
nondefective, as can item 2.
- How many possible outcomes are possible for this experiment? In
this case, listing the possible outcomes is easy. Using Di to denote
that the ith item is defective and Ni to denote that the ith item is
nondefective, the possible outcomes are:
D1D2 D1N2 N1N2 D2N1
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- These four outcomes could be placed in a two-way table

as in Figure 4.12(a) or a tree diagram in Figure 4.12(b).
- This table helps us see that the four outcomes arise from
the fact that the first item has two possible outcomes and
the second item has two possible outcomes, and hence the
experiment of looking at both items has 2 x 2 = 44
outcomes. This is an example of the product rule.
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- This is an example of the product rule.

Counting Rules Useful in Probability
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- The product rule extends to more than two tasks in a

sequence. If, for example, three items were inspected and
each could be defective or nondefective, then there would
be 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 possible outcomes.
- The product rule helps only in finding the number of
elements in a sample space. We must still assign
probabilities to these elements to complete our
probabilistic model.
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

EXAMPLE 4.13

- Tree diagrams are also helpful in verifying the product

rule and in listing possible outcomes. Suppose a firm is
deciding where to build two new plants, one in the east
and one in the west. Four eastern cities and two western
cities are possibilities.
- Thus, there are n1n2 = 4 x 2 = 8 possibilities for locating
the two plants.
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- Figure 4.13 shows the listing of these possibilities on a

tree diagram.
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

EXAMPLE 4.14

- In the case of the firm that plans to build two new plants,
the eight possible outcomes are shown in Figure 4.13.
- If all eight choices are equally Likely (that is, one of the
pairs of cities is selected at random), find the probability
that city E gets selected.
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

SOLUTION:

- City E can be selected in four different ways, since there are four possible
easterncities to pair with it. Thus,

- Each of the eight outcomes has probability 1/8, since the eight events are
assumed to be equally likely. Because these eight events are mutually
exclusive,
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

EXAMPLE 4.15

- Five motors (numbered 1 through 5) are available for use, and

motor 2 is defective. Motors 1 and 2 come from supplier I, and
motors 3, 4, and 5 come from supplier II. Suppose two motors
are randomly selected for use on a particular day. Let A denote
the event that the defective motor is selected and B the event
that at least one motor comes from supplier I.
- Find P(A) and P(B).
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability
SOLUTION:

- The tree diagram in Figure 4.14 shows that there are 20 possible
outcomes for this experiment, which agrees with our calculation
using the product rule. That is, there are 20 events of the form {1,
2}, {1, 3}, and so forth. Because the motors are randomly
selected, each of the 20 outcomes has probability 1/20.
- Thus,
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- Similarly, we can show that B contains 14 of the 20

outcomes and that

P(B) = 14/20 = 0.7

PERMUTATION
Counting Rules Useful in Probability
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

EXAMPLE:

- Suppose that from three pilots a crew of two is to be selected to

form a pilot-copilot team. To count the number of ways this can
be done, observe that the pilot’s seat can be filled in three ways
and the copilot’s in two ways (after the pilot is selected), so
there are 3 x 2 = 6 ways of forming the team.
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- The basic idea of a permutation can be thought of as

filling r slots in a line with one object in each slot by
drawing these objects one at a time from a pool of n
distinct objects.
- The first slot can be filled in n ways, but the second can be
filled in only (n - 1) ways after the first is filled.
- Thus, by the product rule, the first two slots can be filled
in n(n - 1) ways.
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- Extending this reasoning to r slots, we have that the

number of ways of filling all r slots is
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability
EXAMPLE4.16:

- From among 10 employees, three are to be selected for travel to

three out-of-town plants, A, B, and C, with one employee
traveling to each plant. Because the plants are in different cities,
the order of assigning the employees to the plants is an
important consideration. The first person selected might, for
instance, go to plant A and the second to plant B. In how many
ways can the assignments be made?
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability
SOLUTION:

- Because order is important, the number of possible distinct

assignments is:

- In other words, there are 10 choices for plant A but only nine for
plant B and eight for plant C. This gives a total of 10(9)(8) ways of
assigning employees to the plants.
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability
EXAMPLE 4.17:

- An assembly operation in a manufacturing plant involves four

steps, which can be performed in any order. If the manufacturer
wishes to experimentally compare the assembly times for each
possible ordering of the steps, how many orderings will the
experiment involve?
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

SOLUTION:

- The number of orderings is the permutation of n = 4 things taken

r = 4 at a time. (All steps must be accomplished each time.)

- This turns out to be

COMBINATION
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- Sometimes order of selection is not important, and we

are interested only in the number of subsets of a certain
size that can be selected from a given set.
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- The number of ordered subsets of size r, selected from n

distinct objects, is given by P nr .
- The number of unordered subsets of size r is denoted by (nr)
Because any particular set of r objects can be ordered among
themselves in P(rr) = r! ways,
- it follows that: or
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

EXAMPLE 4.19:

- Suppose that three employees are to be selected from ten to

visit a new plant. (a) In how many ways can the selection be
made? (b) If two of the ten employeesare female and eight are
male, what is probability that exactly one female getsselected
among the three?
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

SOLUTION:

a) Here, order is not important; we merely want to know how

many subsets of size r = 3 can be selected from n = 10 people.

The results is:

 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

SOLUTION:

b) We have seen that there are (103) = 120 ways to select three
employees from 10. Similarly, there are (21) = 2 ways to select
one female from the two available and (83) = 28 ways to select
two males from the eight available.
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

SOLUTION:

- If selections are made at random (that is, if all subsets of three

employees are equally likely to be chosen), then the probability
of selecting exactly one female is :
Counting Rules Useful in Probability
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability
- The partitioning of n objects into k groups can be done by
first selecting a subset of size n1 from the n objects, then
selecting a subset of size n2 from the n - n1 objects that
remain, and so on until all groups are filled.
- The number of ways of doing this is:
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability
EXAMPLE 4.21:
- Suppose that 10 employees are to be divided among three
jobs, with three employees going to job I, four to job II, and
three to job III.
(a) In how many ways can the job assignment be made?
(b) Suppose the only three employees of a certain ethnic group
all get assigned to job I.

- What is the probability of this happening under a random

assignment of employees to jobs?
 Counting Rules Useful in Probability

SOLUTION:

a) This problem involves a partitioning of the n = 10 employees into

groups of size n1 = 3, n2 = 4, and n3 = 3, and it can be accomplished in
ways.

ways (Notice the large number

of ways this task can be
accomplished!)
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

b) As seen in part (a) there are 4,200 ways of assigning the

10 workers to three jobs. The event of interest assigns three

specified employees to job I. It remains to be determined
how many ways the other seven employees can be assigned
to jobs II and III, which is:
Counting Rules Useful in Probability

- Thus, the chance of assigning three specific workers to job

I is:

which is very small, indeed!

THE END