Lesson 2

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A NEW COMPANY WITH JUST TWO

EMPLOYEES, SANCHEZ AND PATEL,


RENTS A FLOOR OF A BUILDING
WITH 12 OFFICES. HOW MANY
WAYS ARE THERE TO ASSIGN
DIFFERENT OFFICES TO THESE TWO
EMPLOYEES?
·
·
·
There are 37 ways to choose a member of the mathematics
faculty and there are 83 ways to choose a student who is a
mathematics major. Choosing a member of the
mathematics faculty is never the same as choosing a
student who is a mathematics major because no one is
both a faculty member and a student. By the sum rule it
follows that there are 37 + 83 = 120 possible ways to pick
this representative.
A student can choose a computer project from one of
three lists. The three lists contain 23, 15, and 19
possible projects, respectively. No project is on more
than one list. How many possible projects are there
to choose from?
The student can choose a project by selecting a
project from the first list, the second list, or the
third list. Because no project is on more than
one list, by the sum rule there are
23 + 15 + 19 = 57 ways to choose a project.
|𝐴1 ∪ 𝐴2 | = |𝐴1 | + |𝐴2 | − |𝐴1 ∩ 𝐴2 |
27

26

25
To find the number of these applicants who majored neither in computer science nor
in business, we can subtract the number of students who majored either in computer
science or in business (or both) from the total number of applicants. Let 𝐴1 be the set of
students who majored in computer science and 𝐴2 the set of students who majored in
business. Then 𝐴1 ∪ 𝐴2 is the set of students who majored in computer science or
business (or both), and 𝐴1 ∩ 𝐴2 is the set of students who majored both in computer
science and in business. By the subtraction rule the number of students who majored
either in computer science or in business (or both) equals

∪ ∩
We arbitrarily select a seat at the table and label it seat 1. We number the
rest of the seats in numerical order, proceeding clockwise around the
table. Note that are four ways to select the person for seat 1, three ways
to select the person for seat 2, two ways to select the person for seat 3,
and one way to select the person for seat 4. Thus, there are 4! = 24 ways
to order the given four people for these seats. However, each of the four
choices for seat 1 leads to the same arrangement, as we distinguish two
arrangements only when one of the people has a different immediate left
or immediate right neighbor. Because there are four ways to choose the
person for seat 1, by the division rule there are 24/4 = 6 different seating
arrangements of four people around the circular table.
If 𝑛 and 𝑟 are integers with 0 ≤ 𝑟 ≤ 𝑛, then
𝑛!
𝑃(𝑛, 𝑟) =
(𝑛 − 𝑟)!
The number of different ways to award the
medals is the number of 3-permutations of
a set with eight elements. Hence, there are
𝑃(8, 3) = 8 · 7 · 6 = 336 possible
ways to award the medals.
The number of possible paths between the cities is the
number of permutations of seven elements, because the
first city is determined, but the remaining seven can be
ordered arbitrarily. Consequently, there are 7! = 7 · 6 ·
5 · 4 · 3 · 2 · 1 = 5040 ways for the saleswoman to
choose her tour. If, for instance, the saleswoman wishes to
find the path between the cities with minimum distance,
and she computes the total distance for each possible path,
she must consider a total of 5040 paths!
Because the letters ABC must occur as a block, we can
find the answer by finding the number of permutations of
six objects, namely, the block ABC and the individual
letters D, E, F, G, and H. Because these six objects can
occur in any order, there are 6! = 720 permutations of the
letters ABCDEFGH in which ABC occurs as a block.
The number of 𝑟 -combinations of a set with 𝑛
elements, where 𝑛 is a nonnegative integer and 𝑟 is
an integer with 0 ≤ 𝑟 ≤ 𝑛, equals
𝑛!
𝐶(𝑛, 𝑟) =
𝑟! (𝑛 − 𝑟)!
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?
The answer is given by the number of 5-combinations of a
set with 10 elements.

10!
𝐶 10,5 = = 252.
5! (10 − 5)!
The number of ways to select a crew of six from the pool
of 30 people is the number of 6-combinations of a set
with 30 elements, because the order in which these
people are chosen does not matter. By Theorem 2, the
number of such combinations is
30!
𝐶 30,6 = = 593,775
6! (30 − 6)!
By the product rule, the answer is the product of the number of
3-combinations of a set with nine elements and the number of 4-
combinations of a set with 11 elements. The number of ways to
select the committee is
9! .11!
𝐶 9,3 . 𝐶 11,4 = = 27,720
3! .6! .4! .7!
If 𝑆 is a finite nonempty sample space of equally
likely outcomes, and 𝐸 is an event, that is, a
subset of 𝑆, then the probability of 𝐸 is:
|𝐸|
𝑝(𝐸) =
|𝑆|
There are a total of 36 equally likely possible outcomes
when two dice are rolled. (The product rule can be used to
see this; because each die has six possible outcomes, the
total number of outcomes when two dice are rolled is
2
6 = 36.) There are six successful outcomes, namely,
(1, 6), (2, 5), (3, 4), (4, 3), (5, 2), and (6, 1), where the
values of the first and second dice are represented by an
ordered pair. Hence, the probability that a seven comes up
when two fair dice are rolled is 6/36 = 1/6.
By combination, there are different hands of five
cards. Hence, the probability that a hand contains four
cards of one kind is
𝐶 13, 1 𝐶 4, 4 𝐶 48, 1 13 ・ 1 ・ 48
= ≈ 0.00024
𝐶(52, 5) 2,598,960
Let 𝐸 be an event in a sample space 𝑆. The
probability of the event 𝐸 = 𝑆 − 𝐸, the
complementary event of 𝐸, is given by

𝑝(𝐸) = 1 − 𝑝(𝐸 )
Let 𝐸 be the event that at least one of the 10
bits is 0. Then 𝐸 is the event that all the bits are
1s. Because the sample space S is the set of all
bit strings of length 10, it follows that
|𝐸| 1 1 1023
𝑝(𝐸) = 1 − 𝑝(𝐸) = 1 − = 1 − 10 = 1 − =
|𝑆| 2 1024 1024
Definition 3:
Let E1 and E2 be events in the sample space S.
Then p(E1 ∪ E2) = p(E1) + p(E2) − p(E1 ∩ E2).
Let E1 be the event that the integer selected at random is
divisible by 2, and let E2 be the event that it is divisible by 5.
Then E1 ∪ E2 is the event that it is divisible by either 2 or 5.
Also, E1 ∩ E2 is the event that it is divisible by both 2 and 5,
or equivalently, that it is divisible by 10. Because |E1| = 50,
|E2| = 20, and |E1 ∩ E2| = 10, it follows that
50 20 10 5
𝑝 𝐸1 ∪ 𝐸2 = 𝑝 𝐸1 + 𝑝 𝐸2 − 𝑝 𝐸1 ∩ 𝐸2 = + − =
100 100 100 3
Let E and F be events with p(F) > 0. The conditional
probability of E given F, denoted by p(E | F), is defined as

𝑝(𝐸 ∩ 𝐹 )
𝑝(𝐸 | 𝐹) =
𝑝(𝐹 )
A bit string of length four is generated at random so
that each of the 16 bit strings of length four is
equally likely. What is the probability that it contains
at least two consecutive 0s, given that its first bit is a
0? (We assume that 0 bits and 1 bits are equally
likely.)

𝑝 𝐸 ∩ 𝐹 5Τ16 5
𝑝(𝐸 | 𝐹) = = =
𝑝 𝐹 1Τ2 8
What is the conditional probability that a family with two
children has two boys, given they have at least one boy?
Assume that each of the possibilities BB, BG, GB, and GG
is equally likely, where B represents a boy and G represents
a girl. (Note that BG represents a family with an older boy
and a younger girl while GB represents a family with an
older girl and a younger boy.)
Let E be the event that a family with two children has two
boys, and let F be the event that a family with two children
has at least one boy. It follows that 𝐸 = {𝐵𝐵} , 𝐹 =
{𝐵𝐵, 𝐵𝐺, 𝐺𝐵} , and 𝐸 ∩ 𝐹 = {𝐵𝐵} . Because the four
possibilities are equally likely, it follows that p(F) = 3/4 and
p(E ∩ F) = 1/4. We conclude that
𝑝 𝐸 ∩ 𝐹 1Τ4 1
𝑝(𝐸 | 𝐹) = = =
𝑝 𝐹 3Τ4 3

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