MATH F213

ENUMERATING
PERMUTATIONS
WITH CONSTRAINED
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REPETITION Michael Alphonse
The topic to be covered

1. enumerating permutations with

constrained repetition

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In this section we consider the intermediate cases between
selections with no repetitions and selections with
unlimited repetitions.
We try to find a formula for number of permutations in this
case.

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Example

We list all 3 permutations of {3.a, 2.b, 2,c, 1.d}.

abc, acb, bac, cab, bca, cba

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Example

How many different arrangements are there of the letters

a,a,a,b,c,d.
Questions is same as the number of 6-permutations of {3.a,1.b,
1.c, 1.d}.
Let x be the number of 6-permutaions.
Consider one such permutation : aabcda. If a were distinct, that
is, if they are written a1a2bcda3, then permutations would give
rise to 3! different permutations, namely
a1a2bcda3, a2a1bcda3,, a1a3bcda2, a3a1bcda2, a2a3bcda1,
a3a2bcda1.
Therefore there are 3! x permutations of the set {a 1, a2, a3, b, c,
d} .

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Example

But the total number of permutations of {a1, a2, a3, b, c, d} =

6!
Therefore x = 6!/3! = 6 . 5. 4 = 120

How many 10-permutations are there of {{3.a,4.b, 2.c, 1.d}.

Now we apply the same technique of the previous example
first to a, then b then c.

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Motivated by these two examples, now we are ready to derive the formula
for enumerating n-permutations with constrained repetitions.

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Examples

Eg1. Find the number of arrangements of letters in the word

TRIANNUAL = P(9; 1, 1, 1, 2, 2,1, 1) =

Eg2. In how many ways 43 books be given to 10 students

so that 3 students will have 5 books each and the other
seven will have 4 books each?
Ans : C(10, 3) P(43; 5,5,5,4,4,4,4,4,4,4).

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Ordered and Unordered
Partitions

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Motivation for defining
Partition

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Examples

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Ordered Partition of S of type
(q1, q2, … qt)

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Enumerating Ordered
Partitions of a Set

In the previous example n = 4, q1 = 1, q2 = 1, q3 = 2

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The answer is sum of the numbers in last column.

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Enumerating the number of
unordered Partitions
We give the formula only for the case that the subsets have
the same number of elements.

Apply this theorem to example 2.5.7 ie for the set {a, b, c, d}.
{{a,b}, {c,d}}, {{a,c},{b,d}}, {{a,d}, {b,c}}.
Here t = 2, n =4, q =2

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BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus