Permutation and Combination

(without repetition)

Dr. S. Jeevadoss

Assistant Professor
Department of Applied Mathematics & Computational Sciences
PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore.

October 3, 2021

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Permutation and Combination

Many counting problems can be solved by finding the number

of ways to arrange a specied number of distinct elements of
a set of a particular size, where the order of these elements
matters.
Many other counting problems can be solved by finding the
number of ways to select a particular number of elements from a
set of a particular size, where the order of the elements selected
does not matter.

Example
1 How many ways can we select three students from a group of
nine students to stand in line for a picture?
2 How many different committees of five students can be
formed from a group of thirty students?

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Permutation

A permutation of a set of distinct objects is an ordered

arrangement of these objects.
We also are interested in ordered arrangements of some of the
elements of a set. An ordered arrangement of r elements of a
set is called an r -permutation.

Theorem
If n is a positive integer and r is an integer with 0 ≤ r ≤ n, then
there are
n!
P(n, r ) = n(n − 1)(n − 2) · · · (n − r + 1) =
(n − r )!

r -permutations of a set with n distinct elements.

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Permutation

Let A = {a1 , a2 , · · · , an } be a given set of n distinct objects. For

0 ≤ r ≤ n, an r −permutation of A is a way of arranging any r of
the objects of A in a row.

Example
Let A = {a, b, c, d}. All the 3-permutations of A are shown below:

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Problem-1

How many ways are there to select a rst-prize winner, a

second-prize winner, and a third-prize winner from 100 different
people who have entered a contest?

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Problem-2
Suppose that a saleswoman has to visit eight different cities. She
must begin her trip in a specied city, but she can visit the other
seven cities in any order she wishes. How many possible orders can
the saleswoman use when visiting these cities?

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Problem-3

How many permutations of the letters ABCDEFG contain

1 the string BCD?
2 the string CFGA?
3 the strings BA and GF ?
4 the strings ABC and DE ?
5 the strings ABC and CDE ?
6 the strings CBA and BED?

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Combination

An r -combination of elements of a set is an unordered selection

of r elements from the set. Thus, an r -combination is simply
a subset of the set with r elements.
The number of r -combinations of a set with n distinct elements
is denoted by C (n, r ).
Note that C (n, r ) is also denoted by nr and is called a binomial

coefcient.

Theorem
The number of r -combinations of a set with n elements, where n is
a non-negative integer and r is an integer with 0 ≤ r ≤ n, equals
n!
C (n, r ) =
r ! (n − r )!

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Problem-1

How many poker hands of five cards can be dealt from a standard
deck of 52 cards? Also, how many ways are there to select 47
cards from a standard deck of 52 cards?

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Problem-2

How many ways are there to select five players from a 10-member
tennis team to make a trip to a match at another school?

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Problem-3

How many bit strings of length n contain exactly r 1s?

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Problem-4

Suppose that there are 9 faculty members in the mathematics

department and 11 in the computer science department. How
many ways are there to select a committee to develop a discrete
mathematics course at a school if the committee is to consist of
three faculty members from the mathematics department and four
from the computer science department?

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Worksheet Problems

1. List all the permutations for the letters a, c, t, z.

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Worksheet Problems

2. How many batting orders are possible for a 9-man baseball

team?

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Worksheet Problems

4. How many different arrangements are there for the eight letters
{a, c, f , g , i, t, w , x} ?
a. How many start with the letter t?
b. How many start with letter t and end with the letter c?

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Worksheet Problems

7. Quality control wants to test 25 microprocessor chips from the

300 manufactured each day. How many different batches of test
chips are possible?

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Worksheet Problems

8. How many different sets of 4 novels and 3 plays can be created

from a collection of 21 novels and 11 plays?

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Worksheet Problems

12. How many bit strings of length 12 contain

a. exactly three 1s?
b. at most three 1s?
c. at least three 1s?
d. an equal number of 0s and 1s?

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Worksheet Problems
17. Concern a 5-card hand from a standard 52-card deck. The
jack, queen, and king are face cards.
a. How many hands contain 4 queens?
b. How many hands contain all diamonds?
c. How many hands contain 3 spades and 2 hearts?
d. How many hands contain cards from all 4 suits?
e. How many hands consist of all face cards?
f. How many hands contain exactly 2 spades and
exactly 2 hearts?
g. How many hands contain exactly 2 aces and at least
1 club?
h. How many hands contain exactly 3 jacks and at most
2 hearts?

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