Polya’s 4 Steps in Problem-Solving 1. A baseball eam won two out oftheir last four games. How many diferent ‘orders could they have two wins and two losses in four games? ‘Solution: In this case, the problem is to determine the numberof ferent orders in which a basoball tam could have two wine and two lasses in four games. Step 1: Understand the problem Given: A baseball team won two out oftheir last four games. To ing: The numberof efferent orders in which they could have two wins and two losses in four games. ‘Step 2: Devise a plan ‘One possible approach is to use Polye’s strategy, In particular, we can use cycle index polynomials to ‘enumerate the permutations of four games with two wins and two losses. ‘Step 3: Carry outthe plan ‘The eye index polynomial for a set of four objects with two colors is Chet’ +2 + xt’ where x1 represents a cycle of length 1 and x? represents @ cycle of length 2. The coefficients ofthe terms in the polynomial give the number of permutations with the corresponding cycle structure. ‘To find the number of permutations with two wins and two losses, we need to evaluate the polynomial Z when x1=0 and x2=2 (since there are two two-cycles in 2 permutation with two wins and two losses) 20,2) = Geo! + 2@) +0@'y = 2 ‘Therefore, there are two different orders in which the baseball team could have two wins and two losses in four games. ‘Step 4: Evaluate the solution ‘To check the solution, we can ist all the possible orders: YWL, WLIVL, WLW, LWW, LL, and LWW 2. James, John, Peter, and Mary were recently elected as the new class officers (president, vice President, secretary, and treasurer) of the sophomore class at Summit College. From the fallowing clues, determine which position each holds. a) Mary is younger than the president but older than the treasurer. b) James and the secretary are both the same age, and they are the youngest members ofthe group, (©) Peter and the secretary are next-door nelghbors. President | Vice-President | Secretary Treasurer James 2 x2 x2 v John 2 2 v 2 Peter v 2 3 2 Mary x v x2 xi