Chapter 2

Section 2.2 – The Sum Rule

The Sum Rule is the second fundamental counting rule.

Example 2.6 – Congressional Delegations

There are 100 senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives. A delegation
is being selected to see the President. In how many different ways can such a delegation
be picked if it consists of one senator and one representative? By the Product Rule, the
answer is: 100 x 435 = 43,500

What if the delegation is to consist of one member of the Senate or one representative?
Then there are 100 + 435 = 535 possible delegations.

This illustrates the Sum Rule

SUM RULE: If one event can occur in n1 ways, and a second event in n2 (different) ways, then
there are n1 + n2 ways in which either the first event or the second event can occur (but not
both). In general, if one event can occur in n1 ways, a second event can occur in n2 (different)
ways, a third event can occur in n3 (still different) ways, …, the there are n1 + n2 + n3 + … ways in
which exactly one of the events occur.

Example 2.7 – Draft Picks

A professional football team has two draft choices to make and has limited the choice to
3 quarterbacks, 4 linebackers, and 5 wide receivers. To pick a quarterback and
linebacker there are 3 x 4 = 12 ways, by the product rule. How many ways are there to
pick two players if they must play different positions? You can pick either a quarterback
and linebacker, a quarterback and wide receiver, or linebacker and wide receiver. There
are 12 ways of doing the first, 15 ways for the second (3 x 5), and 20 ways for doing the
third (4 x 5). Thus, by the Sum Rule, there are 12 + 15 + 20 = 47 ways of choosing the
two players from different positions.

The Sum Rule can be restated in this way: Suppose that A and B are disjoint (nothing in common) sets
and we wish to pick exactly one element, picking it from A or from B. Then the number of ways to pick
this element is the number of elements in A plus the number of elements in B.