Definition: Permutation: An arrangement is called a Permutation. It is the rearrangement of objects or symbols into distinguishable sequences.

When we set things in order, we say we have made an arrangement. When we change the order, we say we have changed the arrangement. So each of the arrangement that can be made by taking some or all of a number of things is known as Permutation. Combination: A Combination is a selection of some or all of a number of different objects. It is an unordered collection of unique sizes.In a permutation the order of occurence of the objects or the arrangement is important but in combination the order of occurence of the objects is not important.

Formula: Permutation = nPr = n! / (n-r)! Combination = nCr = nPr / r! where, n, r are non negative integers and r<=n. r is the size of each permutation. n is the size of the set from which elements are permuted. ! is the factorial operator.

Example: take the number of permutations and combinations: n=3; r=1.

Step 1: Find the factorial of 7. 6! = 6*5*4*3*2*1 = 720 Step 2: Find the factorial of 6-4. (6-4)! = 2! = 2 Step 3: Divide 720 by 2. Permutation = 720/2 = 360 Step 4: Find the factorial of 4. 4! = 4*3*2*1 = 24 Step 5:Divide 360 by 24. Combination = 360/24 = 15

If represents the number of combinations of n items taken r at a time, what is the value of ?

This principle can be extended to any number of operations FACTORIAL n

The continuous product of the first n natural numbers is called factorial n and is deonoted by n! i.e, n! = 123x .. x(n-1)xn.

PERMUTATION
An arrangement that can be formed by taking some or all of a finite set of things (or objects) is called a Permutation. Order of the things is very important in case of permutation. A permutation is said to be a Linear Permutation if the objects are arranged in a line. A linear permutation is simply called as a permutation. A permutation is said to be a Circular Permutation if the objects are arranged in the form of a circle. The number of (linear) permutations that can be formed by taking r things at a time from a set of n distinct things is denoted by .%

NUMBER OF PERMUTATIONS UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS

1. Number of permutations of n different things, taken r at a time, when a particular thng is to be always included in each arrangement , is . 2. Number of permutations of n different things, taken r at a time, when a particular thing is never taken in each arrangement is . 3. Number of permutations of n different things, taken all at a time, when m specified things always come together is . 4. Number of permutations of n different things, taken all at a time, when m specified never come together is . 5. The number of permutations of n dissimilar things taken r at a time when k(< r) particular things always occur is . 6. The number of permutations of n dissimilar things taken r at a time when k particular things never occur is . 7. The number of permutations of n dissimilar things taken r at a time when repetition of things is allowed any number of times is 8. The number of permutations of n different things, taken not more than r at a time, when each thing may occur any number of times is 9. The number of permutations of n different things taken not more than r at a time . .

+ PERMUTATIONS OF SIMILAR THINGS+ The number of permutations of n things taken all tat a time when p of them are all alike and the rest are all different is . If p things are alike of one type, q things are alike of other type, r things are alike of another type, then the number of permutations with p+q+r things is .

CIRCULAR PERMUTATIONS

}1. The number of circular permutations of n dissimilar things taken r at a time is 2. The number of circular permutations of n dissimilar things taken all at a time is . 3. The number of circular permutations of n things taken r at a time in one direction is .

4. The number of circular permutations of n dissimilar things in clock-wise direction = Number of permutations in anticlock-wise direction =
COMBINATION A selection that can be called a Combination

formed by taking some or all of a finite set of things( or objects) is

The number of combinations of n dissimilar things taken r at a time is denoted by 1. 2. .

3. 4. 5. The number of combinations of n things taken r at a time in which a)s particular things will always occur is b)s particular things will never occur is . . .

c)s particular things always occurs and p particular things never occur is
DISTRIBUTION OF THINGS INTO GROUPS

1.Number of ways in which (m+n) items can be divided into two unequal groups containing m and n items is .

2.The number of ways in which mn different items can be divided equally into m groups, each containing n objects and the order of the groups is not important is 3.The number of ways in which mn different items can be divided equally into m groups, each containing n objects and the order of the groups is important is .

4.The number of ways in which (m+n+p) things can be divided into three different groups of m,n, an p things respectively is 5.The required number of ways of dividing 3n things into three groups of n each = .When the order of groups has importance then the required number of ways=

DIVISION OF IDENTICAL OBJECTS INTO GROUPS

The total number of ways of dividing n identical items among r persons, each one of whom, can receive 0,1,2 or more items is }The number of non-negative integral solutions of the equation . The total number of ways of dividing n identical items among r persons, each one of whom receives at least one item is The number of positive integral solutions of the equation .

The number of ways of choosing r objects from p objects of one kind, q objects of second kind, and so on is the coefficient of in the expansion

he number of ways of choosing r objects from p objects of one kind, q objects of second kind, and so on, such that one object of each kind may be included is the coefficient of is the coefficient of in the expansion .

%{font-family:verdana}+*TOTAL NUMB ER OF COMBINATIONS*+% %{font-family:verdana}1.The total number of combinations of things taken any number at a time when things are alike of one kind, things are alike of second kind. things are alike of kind, is %{font-family:verdana}2.The total number of combinations of things taken one or more at a time when things are alike of one kind, things are alike of second kind. things are alike of kind, is% .%

SUM OF THE NUMBERS

Sum of the numbers formed by taking all the given n digits (excluding 0) is Sum of the numbers formed by taking all the given n digits (including 0) is Sum of all the r-digit numbers formed by taking the given n digits(excluding 0) is % %{font-family:verdana}Sum of all the r-digit numbers formed by taking the given n digits(including 0) is
DE-ARRANGEMENT:

The number of ways in which exactly r letters can be placed in wrongly addressed envelopes when n letters are placed in n addressed envelopes is . The number of ways in which n different letters can be placed in their n addressed envelopes so that al the letters are in the wrong envelopes is
IMPORTANT RESULTS TO REMEBER

In a plane if there are n points of which no three are collinear, then 1. The number of straight lines that can be formed by joining them is 2. The number of triangles that can be formed by joining them is . . .

3. The number of polygons with k sides that can be formed by joining them is In a plane if there are n points out of which m points are collinear, then 1. The number of straight lines that can be formed by joining them is 2. The number of triangles that can be formed by joining them is .

3. The number of polygons with k sides that can be formed by joining them is . Number of rectangles of any size in a square of n x n is In a rectangle of p x q (p < q) number of rectangles of any size is In a rectangle of p x q (p < q) number of squares of any size is n straight lines are drawn in the plane such that no two lines are parallel and no three lines three lines are concurrent. Then the number of parts into which these lines divide the plane is equal to .

SECTION 3.4 Counting, Permutations and Combinations

Basics of Counting Permutations r-permutations Combinations Basics of Counting People may think that counting is easy, and certainly sometimes it is. But some of the aspects of counting are not simple, especially counting a large number of elements. In this case, we need to use some mathematical skills to find out the answer. Consider counting the number of elements in a list, where each element has an index beginning with some integer m and ending with some integer n, and m < n. Then there are n - m + 1 elements in the list, from m to ninclusive. For example, if the first index is 0, and the last indexed element is 99, then you have 99 - 0 + 1 = 100 elements. This method also works for counting a certain number of elements from only part of the list (for example, the number of elements between index nos. 12 and 43.) There are two basic counting principles:
Sum Rule Suppose that an operation can be performed by either of two different procedures, with m possible outcomes for the first procedure and n possible outcomes for the second. If the two sets of possible outcomes are disjoint, then the number of possible

outcomes for the operation is m + n. Product Rule Suppose that an operation consists of k steps and: the first step can be performed in n1 ways; the second step can be performed in n2 ways (ignoring how the first step was performed), . . .; and the kth step can be performed in nk ways. Then the whole operation can be performed in n1 * n2 * ........... * nk ways.

Consider the following examples:

Example A scholarship is available, and the student to receive this scholarship must be chosen 1: from the Mathematics, Computer Science, or the Engineering Department. How many different choices are there for this student if there are 38 qualified students from the Mathematics Department, 45 qualified students from the Computer Science Department and 27 qualified students from the Engineering Department? Solution: The procedure of choosing a student from the Mathematics Department has 38 possible outcomes, the procedure of choosing a student from the Computer Science Department has 45 possible outcomes, and the procedure of choosing a student from the Engineering Department has 27 possible outcomes. Therefore, there are (38 + 45 + 27 ) 110 possible choices for the student to receive the scholarship. Example A man has 10 shirts, 8 pairs of pants and three pairs of shoes. How many different 2: outfits, consisting of one shirt, one pair of pants and one pair of shoes, are possible? Solution: We have to consider three steps: choose a shirt; choose a pair of pants; and choose a pair of shoes. Choosing a shirt has 10 possible outcomes (as he has ten shirts!), choosing a pair of pants has 8 possible outcomes, and choosing a pair of shoes has 3 possible outcomes. So the number of different outfits is 10 * 8 * 3 = 240.

Question : How many different outfits, consisting of one shirt, one pair of pants, one pair of shoes and one hat, are possible if he has bought two hats? Click here for answer.

Permutations DEFINITIONS
Permutation Given n different elements in a set, any ordered arrangement of these elements is called a permutation.

r-permutation An r-permutation of a set of n elements is an ordered selection of r elements taken from the set of n elements. It is denoted by P(n, r).

Permutations are arrangements of the objects within a set. For example, the set of elements a, b and c has six permutations. abc, bac, bca, acb, cab, cba

Imagine that we have a set of n elements, how can we find the number permutations of the set? Try to view creating a permutation as an n-step operation: 1st step: choose the first element. If there are n elements, then there are n possible choices for the first element. 2nd step: choose the second element. Since one element has already been chosen and placed, there are n-1 possible choices remaining. 3rd step: choose the third element. Since two elements have already been chosen and placed, there are n-2 possible choices remaining. ..... nth step: choose the nth element. Since n-1 elements have already been chosen and placed for the preceding steps, there is only one choice left in the set. Hence by the product rule, there are n * (n - 1) * (n - 2) * ...... * 2 * 1 ways to perform the entire operation. In other words, there are n! permutations of a set of n elements.

r-permutations

Now, consider the following example: Given a set of 3 elements a, b, and c. there are six ways to select two elements from the set and write them in order. ab, ba, bc, cb, ca, ac

This is called a 2-permutation of the set {a, b, c}. If we are given a set of n elements, and we have to select r elements from the set where r < n, what is the r-permutation of the set? 1st step: choose the first element. If there are n elements, then there are n possible choices for the first element. 2nd step: choose the second element. Since one element has already been chosen and placed, there are n-1 possible choices remaining. 3rd step: choose the third element. Since two elements have already been chosen and placed, there are n-2 possible choices remaining. ..... rth step: choose the rth element. This is the last step, and since there are n - r + 1 elements remaining, there are clearly n - r + 1 ways left to select an element from the set. Therefore by the product rule, there are n * (n - 1) * (n - 2) * ....... * (n - r + 1) ways to perform the entire operation. P(n, r) = n * (n - 1) * (n - 2) * ....... * (n - r + 1) or equivalently,

P(n, r) =

Try to figure out how this equation equals n * (n - 1) * (n - 2) * ....... * (n - r + 1). Click here for explanation.

Combinations DEFINITION
rAn r-combination from a set of n elements is a unordered selection of r elements combinations from the set, where n and r are nonnegative integers with r < n. r-combination is denoted by the symbol , read "nchoose r," and denotes the number of subsets of size r (r-combinations) that can be chosen from a set of n elements.

In some books and calculators, the symbols C(n, r), nCr, Cn, r, or nCr are used instead of .

Consider the following example: Let L = {Discrete Structures, Assembly Language, C Programming, Computer organization, File Processing}. A student can take three of the five classes in L in one quarter. A. List all 3-combinations of L. B. Find Answers:
A. {Discrete Structures, Assembly Language, C Programming} {Discrete Structures, Assembly Language, Computer Organization} {Discrete Structures, Assembly Language, File Processing} {Discrete Structures, C Programming, Computer Organization} {Discrete Structures, C Programming, File Processing} {Discrete Structures, Computer Organization, File Processing} {Assembly Language, C Programming, Computer Organization} {Assembly Language, C Programming, File Processing} {Assembly Language, Computer Organization, File Processing} {C Programming, Computer Organization, File Processing}

There are ten 3-combinations in L. B. = 10. is the number of 3-combinations of a set with five elements, by part A,

If we are given a set with n elements, what is the number of r-combinations from that set? Consider obtaining an r-permutation: one can first select r elements, which can be done in Hence, P(n, r) = ways, and then arrange them, which can be done in r! ways. r!, = P(n, r)/r!

Since P(n, r) =

Consider the following example: Suppose you have a group of 10 children consisting of 4 girls and 6 boys. A. How many four-person teams can be chosen that consist of two girls and two boys? B. How many four-person teams contain at least one girl? Answers: A. To solve this problem, we have to do two things: First choose two girls; then choose two boys. There are ways to choose two girls out of the four and choose two boys out of the six. Hence by the product rule, Number of teams that contain two girls and two boys = * ways to

= = *

= = 90 B. The number of teams containing at least one girl = total number of teams of four - number of teams of four that do not contain any girls.

Definition: Permutation:

An arrangement is called a Permutation. It is the rearrangement of objects or symbols into distinguishable sequences. When we set things in order, we say we have made an arrangement. When we change the order, we say we have changed the arrangement. So each of the arrangement that can be made by taking some or all of a number of things is known as Permutation. Combination: A Combination is a selection of some or all of a number of different objects. It is an un-ordered collection of unique sizes.In a permutation the order of occurence of the objects or the arrangement is important but in combination the order of occurence of the objects is not important. Formula: Permutation = nPr = n! / (n-r)! Combination = nCr = nPr / r! where, n, r are non negative integers and r<=n. r is the size of each permutation. n is the size of the set from which elements are permuted. ! is the factorial operator. Example:Find the number of permutations and combinations: n=6; r=4. Step 1: Find the factorial of 6. 6! = 6*5*4*3*2*1 = 720 Step 2: Find the factorial of 6-4. (6-4)! = 2! = 2 Step 3: Divide 720 by 2. Permutation = 720/2 = 360 Step 4: Find the factorial of 4. 4! = 4*3*2*1 = 24 Step 5:Divide 360 by 24. Combination = 360/24 = 15 The above example will help you to find the Permutation and Combination manually.

Basics Of Permutation And Combination Presentation Transcript

1. BASICS OF PERMUTATION AND COMBINATION by : DR. T.K. JAIN AFTERSCHO OL centre for social entrepreneurship sivakamu veterinary hospital road bikaner 334001 rajasthan, india www.afterschoool.tk mobile : 91+9414430763

2. What is factorial ? 5! = 5*4*3*2*1 thus factorial 5 means we will multiply 5 to all the numbers lower to it.

3. What is permutation? Permutation means number of arrangements (keeping the order into mind). Thus A,B,C can give you following permutations : ABC,ACB,BAC,BCA,BAC,CAB,CBA

4. What is combination? In combination, the order it not considered, thus A,B,C will have only one combination ABC or BAC or BCA (whatever you call, it is one combination) combination means together, thus when some digits are together, it is a combination, it is not importnat who comes first or second or third.

5. How many numbers can you make out of 4 different digits? Answer : 4! remember, we have to solve it as N!, thus if we have four digits 1,2,3,4, we can make 24 numbers out of it. Verify it : 1234,1243,1324,1342,1423,1432,2134,2143, ...so on

6. How many permutations are possible from 4 digits taking 3 at a time? Total digits = N = 4 digits taken = r = 3 N! / (N-r)! =4! / (4-3)! = 24 answer

7. You have beads of 5 colours, how many necklace can you form? For such questions, use formula of circular permutation = * (n-1)! =1/2 * (5-1)! =12 answer

8. How many combinations can be formed from 5 digits taking 3 at a time? Formula of combination : n! / (r! (n-r)!) n = 5 r=2 5!/(2! *3!) =120/12 =10 answer

9. How many words can you form from C O L L E C T I O N THERE ARE 10 DIGITS. Some are similar (L, C, O, are coming twice). For such the formula is : N! / (X!Y!Z!) N = 10, X = 2, Y = 2, Z = 2 (X, Y and Z are for number of repeatitions) = 10!/ (2! * 2!* 2!)

10. How many combinations are possible out of 6 boys, taking one or all or some of them together? Formula for taking one or all or some of them is : 2^n 1 here we can take 1, 2, 3, 4,5, or 6 boys at a time. We cannot take 0 boys. So the formula is 2^n 1 = 2^6 1 = 63 answer

11. THANKS.... GIVE YOUR SUGGESTIONS AND JOIN AFTERSCHOOOL NETWORK / START AFTERSCHOOOL NETWORK IN YOUR CITY [email_address] PGPSE WORLD'S MOST COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAMME IN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Permutation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Permutation (disambiguation).

The 6 permutations of 3 balls

In mathematics, the notion of permutation is used with several slightly different meanings, all related to the act of permuting (rearranging) objects or values. Informally, a permutation of a set of objects is an arrangement of those objects into a particular order. For example, there are six permutations of the set {1,2,3}, namely (1,2,3), (1,3,2), (2,1,3), (2,3,1), (3,1,2), and (3,2,1). One might define an anagram of a word as a permutation of its letters. The study of permutations in this sense generally belongs to the field of combinatorics. The number of permutations of n distinct objects is n(n 1)(n 2)...21, which number is called "n factorial" and written "n!". Permutations occur, in more or less prominent ways, in almost every domain of mathematics. They often arise when different orderings on certain finite sets are considered, possibly only because one wants to ignore such orderings and needs to know how many configurations are thus identified. For similar reasons permutations arise in the study of sorting algorithms in computer science.

In algebra and particularly in group theory, a permutation of a set S is defined as a bijection from S to itself (i.e., a map S S for which every element of S occurs exactly once as image value). This is related to the rearrangement of S in which each element s takes the place of the corresponding f(s). The collection of such permutations form a symmetric group. The key to its structure is the possibility to compose permutations: performing two given rearrangements in succession defines a third rearrangement, the composition. Permutations may act on composite objects by rearranging their components, or by certain replacements (substitutions) of symbols. In elementary combinatorics, the name "permutations and combinations" refers to two related problems, both counting possibilities to select k distinct elements from a set of n elements, where for k-permutations the order of selection is taken into account, but for k-combinations it is ignored. However k-permutations do not correspond to permutations as discussed in this article (unless k = n).
Contents
[hide]

o o o o o o o

1 History 2 Generalities 2.1 In group theory 2.2 In combinatorics 3 Permutations in group theory 3.1 Notation 3.2 Product and inverse 4 Permutations in combinatorics 4.1 Ascents, descents and runs 4.2 Inversions 4.3 Counting sequences without

repetition

o o

5 Permutations in computing 5.1 Numbering permutations 5.2 Algorithms to generate

permutations

5.2.1 Random generation of

permutations

5.2.2 Generation in

lexicographic order

5.2.3 Generation with

minimal changes

o o

5.3 Software implementations 5.3.1 Calculator functions 5.3.2 Spreadsheet functions 5.4 Applications 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References

[edit]History
The rule to determine the number of permutations of n objects was known in Hindu culture at least as early as around 1150: the Lilavati by the Indian mathematician Bhaskara II contains a passage that translates to The product of multiplication of the arithmetical series beginning and increasing by unity and continued to the number of places, will be the variations of number with specific figures.[1] A first case in which seemingly unrelated mathematical questions were studied with the help of permutations occurred around 1770, when Joseph Louis Lagrange, in the study of polynomial equations, observed that properties of the permutations of the roots of an equation are related to the possibilities to solve it. This line of work ultimately resulted, through the work of variste Galois, in Galois theory, which gives a complete description of what is possible and impossible with respect to solving polynomial equations (in one unknown) by radicals. In modern mathematics there are many similar situations in which understanding a problem requires studying certain permutations related to it.

[edit]Generalities
The notion of permutation is used in the following contexts.

[edit]In

group theory

In group theory and related areas, one considers permutations of arbitrary sets, even infinite ones. A permutation of a set S is a bijection from S to itself. This allows for permutations to be composed, which allows the definition of groups of permutations. If S is a finite set of n elements, then there are n! permutations of S.

[edit]In

combinatorics

Permutations of multisets

In combinatorics, a permutation is usually understood to be a sequence containing each element from a finite set once, and only once. The concept ofsequence is distinct from that of a set, in that the elements of a sequence appear in some order: the sequence has a first element (unless it is empty), a second element (unless its length is less than 2), and so on. In contrast, the elements in a set have no order; {1, 2, 3} and {3, 2, 1} are different ways to denote the same set. In this sense a permutation of a finite set S of n elements is equivalent to a bijection from {1, 2, ... , n} to S (in which any i is mapped to the i-th element of the sequence), or to a choice of a total ordering on S (for which x < y if x comes before y in the sequence). In this sense there are also n! permutations of S. There is also a weaker meaning of the term "permutation" that is sometimes used in elementary combinatorics texts, designating those sequences in which no element occurs more than once, but without the requirement to use all elements from a given set. Indeed this use often involves considering sequences of a fixed length k of elements taken from a given set of size n. These objects are also known as sequences without repetition, a term that avoids confusion with the other, more common, meanings of "permutation". The number of such k-

permutations of n is denoted variously by such symbols as n Pk, nPk, Pn,k, or P(n,k), and its value is given by the product[2]

which is 0 when k > n, and otherwise is equal to

The product is well defined without the assumption that n is a non-negative integer, and is of importance outside combinatorics as well; it is known as the Pochhammer symbol (n)k or as the k-th falling factorial power nk of n. If M is a finite multiset, then a multiset permutation is a sequence of elements of M in which each element appears exactly as often as is its multiplicity in M. If the multiplicities of the elements of M (taken in some order) are , , ..., and their sum (i.e., the size of M) is n, then the

number of multiset permutations of M is given by the multinomial coefficient

[edit]Permutations

in group theory

Main article: Symmetric group In group theory, the term permutation of a set means a bijective map, or bijection, from that set onto itself. The set of all permutations of any given set S forms a group, with composition of maps as product and the identity as neutral element. This is the symmetric group of S. Up to isomorphism, this symmetric group only depends on the cardinality of the set, so the nature of elements of S is irrelevant for the structure of the group. Symmetric groups have been studied most in the case of a finite sets, in which case one can assume without loss of generality that S={1,2,...,n} for some natural number n, which defines the symmetric group of degree n, written Sn. Any subgroup of a symmetric group is called a permutation group. In fact by Cayley's theorem any group is isomorphic to some permutation group, and every finite group to a subgroup of some finite symmetric group. However, permutation groups have more structure than abstract groups, allowing for instance to define the cycle type of an element of a permutation group; different realizations of a group as a permutation group need not be equivalent for this additional structure. For instance S3 is naturally a permutation group, in which any transposition has cycle type (2,1), but the proof of Cayley's theorem realizes S3 as a subgroup of S6 (namely

the permutations of the 6 elements of S3 itself), in which permutation group transpositions get cycle type (2,2,2). So in spite of Cayley's theorem, the study of permutation groups differs from the study of abstract groups.

[edit]Notation
There are three main notations for permutations of a finite set S. In Cauchy's two-line notation, one lists the elements of S in the first row, and for each one its image under the permutation below it in the second row. For instance, a particular permutation of the set {1,2,3,4,5} can be written as:

this means that satisfies (1)=2, (2)=5, (3)=4, (4)=3, and (5)=1. In one-line notation, one gives only the second row of this array, so the one-line notation for the permutation above is 25431. (It is typical to use commas to separate these entries only if some have two or more digits.) Cycle notation, the third method of notation, focuses on the effect of successively applying the permutation. It expresses the permutation as a product of cycles corresponding to the orbits (with at least two elements) of the permutation; since distinct orbits are disjoint, this is loosely referred to as "the decomposition into disjoint cycles" of the permutation. It works as follows: starting from some element x of S with (x) x, one writes the sequence (x (x) ((x)) ...) of successive images under , until the image would be x, at which point one instead closes the parenthesis. The set of values written down forms the orbit (under ) of x, and the parenthesized expression gives the corresponding cycle of . One then continues choosing an element y of S that is not in the orbit already written down, and such that (y) y, and writes down the corresponding cycle, and so on until all elements of S either belong to a cycle written down or are fixed points of . Since for every new cycle the starting point can be chosen in different ways, there are in general many different cycle notations for the same permutation; for the example above one has for instance

Each cycle (x1 x2 ... xl) of denotes a permutation in its own right, namely the one that takes the same values as on this orbit (so it maps xi to xi+1 for i < l, and xl to x1), while mapping all other elements of S to themselves. The size l of the orbit is called the length of the cycle. Distinct orbits of are by definition disjoint, so the corresponding cycles are

easily seen to commute, and is the product of its cycles (taken in any order). Therefore the concatenation of cycles in the cycle notation can be interpreted as denoting composition of permutations, whence the name "decomposition" of the permutation. This decomposition is essentially unique: apart from the reordering the cycles in the product, there are no other ways to write as a product of cycles (possibly unrelated to the cycles of ) that have disjoint orbits. The cycle notation is less unique, since each individual cycle can be written in different ways, as in the example above where (5 1 2) denotes the same cycle as (1 2 5) (but (5 2 1) would denote a different permutation). An orbit of size 1 (a fixed point x in S) has no corresponding cycle, since that permutation would fix x as well as every other element of S, in other words it would be the identity, independently ofx. It is possible to include (x) in the cycle notation for to stress that fixes x (and this is even standard in combinatorics, as described in cycles and fixed points), but this does not correspond to a factor in the (group theoretic) decomposition of . If the notion of "cycle" were taken to include the identity permutation, then this would spoil the uniqueness (up to order) of the decomposition of a permutation into disjoint cycles. The decomposition into disjoint cycles of the identity permutation is an empty product; its cycle notation would be empty, so some other notation like e is usually used instead. Cycles of length two are called transpositions; such permutations merely exchange the place of two elements.

[edit]Product

and inverse

Main article: Symmetric group The product of two permutations is defined as their composition as functions, in other words is the function that maps any element x of the set to ((x)). Note that the rightmost permutation is applied to the argument first, because of the way function application is written. Some authors prefer the leftmost factor acting first, but to that end permutations must be written to the right of their argument, for instance as an exponent, where acting on x is written x; then the product is defined by x=(x). However this gives a different rule for multiplying permutations; this article uses the definition where the rightmost permutation is applied first. Since the composition of two bijections always gives another bijection, the product of two permutations is again a permutation. Since function composition is associative, so is

the product operation on permutations: ()=(). Therefore, products of more than two permutations are usually written without adding parentheses to express grouping; they are also usually written without a dot or other sign to indicate multiplication. The identity permutation, which maps every element of the set to itself, is the neutral element for this product. In two-line notation, the identity is

Since bijections have inverses, so do permutations, and the inverse 1 of is again a permutation. Explicitly, whenever (x)=y one also has 1(y)=x. In two-line notation the inverse can be obtained by interchanging the two lines (and sorting the columns if one wishes the first line to be in a given order). For instance

In cycle notation one can reverse the order of the elements in each cycle to obtain a cycle notation for its inverse. Having an associative product, a neutral element, and inverses for all its elements, makes the set of all permutations of S into a group, called the symmetric group of S. Every permutation of a finite set can be expressed as the product of transpositions. Moreover, although many such expressions for a given permutation may exist, there can never be among them both expressions with an even number and expressions with an odd number of transpositions. All permutations are then classified as even or odd, according to the parity of the transpositions in any such expression.

Composition of permutations corresponds to multiplication of permutation matrices.

Multiplying permutations written in cycle notation follows no easily described pattern, and the cycles of the product can be entirely different from those of the permutations being composed. However the cycle structure is preserved in the special case of conjugating a permutation by another permutation, which means forming the product 1. Here the cycle notation of the result can be obtained by taking the cycle notation for and applying to all the entries in it.
[3]

One can represent a permutation of {1, 2, ..., n} as an nn matrix. There are two natural ways to do so, but only one for which multiplications of matrices corresponds to multiplication of permutations in the same order: this is the one that associates to the matrix M whose entry Mi,j is 1 if i = (j), and 0 otherwise. The resulting matrix has exactly one entry 1 in each column and in each row, and is called a permutation matrix. Here (file) is a list of these matrices for permutations of 4 elements. The Cayley table on the right shows these matrices for permutations of 3 elements.

[edit]Permutations

in combinatorics

In combinatorics a permutation of a set S with n elements is a listing of the elements of S in some order (each element occurring exactly once). This can be defined formally as a bijection from the set { 1, 2, ..., n } to S. Note that if S equals { 1, 2, ..., n }, then this definition coincides with the definition in

group theory. More generally one could use instead of { 1, 2, ..., n } any set equipped with a total ordering of its elements. One combinatorial property that is related to the group theoretic interpretation of permutations, and can be defined without using a total ordering of S, is the cycle structure of a permutation . It is the partition of n describing the lengths of the cycles of . Here there is a part "1" in the partition for every fixed point of . A permutation that has no fixed point is called a derangement. Other combinatorial properties however are directly related to the ordering of S, and to the way the permutation relates to it. Here are a number of such properties.

[edit]Ascents,

descents and runs

An ascent of a permutation of n is any position i < n where the following value is bigger than the current one. That is, if = 12...n, then i is an ascent if i < i+1. For example, the permutation 3452167 has ascents (at positions) 1,2,5,6. Similarly, a descent is a position i < n with i > i+1, so every i with either is an ascent or is a descent of . ;

The number of permutations of n with k ascents is the Eulerian number this is also the number of permutations of n with k descents.[4] An ascending run of a permutation is a nonempty increasing contiguous subsequence of the permutation that cannot be extended at either end; it

corresponds to a maximal sequence of successive ascents (the latter may be empty: between two successive descents there is still an ascending run of length 1). By contrast an increasing subsequence of a permutation is not necessarily contiguous: it is an increasing sequence of elements obtained from the permutation by omitting the values at some positions. For example, the permutation 2453167 has the ascending runs 245, 3, and 167, while it has an increasing subsequence 2367. If a permutation has k 1 descents, then it must be the union of k ascending runs. Hence, the number of permutations of n with k ascending runs is the same as the number of permutations with k 1 descents.[5]

[edit]Inversions
Main article: Inversion (discrete mathematics) An inversion of a permutation is a pair (i,j) of positions where the entries of a permutation are in the opposite order: and .[6] So a descent

is just an inversion at two adjacent positions. For example, the permutation = 23154 has three inversions: (1,3), (2,3), (4,5), for the pairs of entries (2,1), (3,1), (5,4). Sometimes an inversion is defined as the pair of values (i,j) itself whose order is reversed; this makes no difference for the number of inversions, and this pair (reversed) is also an inversion in the above sense for the inverse permutation 1. The number of inversions is an important measure for the degree to which the entries of a permutation are out of order; it is the same for and for1. To bring a permutation with k inversions into order (i.e., transform it into the identity permutation), by successively applying (rightmultiplication by) adjacent transpositions, is always possible and requires a sequence of k such operations. Moreover any reasonable choice for the adjacent transpositions will work: it suffices to choose at each step a transposition of i and i + 1 where i is a descent of the permutation as modified so far (so that the transposition will remove this particular descent, although it might create other descents). This is so because applying such a transposition reduces the number of inversions by 1; also note that as long as this number is not zero, the permutation is not the identity, so it has at least one descent. Bubble sort and insertion sort can be interpreted as particular instances of this procedure to put a sequence into order. Incidentally this procedure proves that any permutation can be written as a product of adjacent transpositions; for this one may simply reverse any sequence of such transpositions that transforms into the identity. In fact, by enumerating all sequences of adjacent transpositions that would transform into the identity, one obtains (after reversal) a complete list of all expressions of minimal length writing as a product of adjacent transpositions. The number of permutations of n with k inversions is expressed by a Mahonian number,[7] it is the coefficient of Xk in the expansion of the product

which is also known (with q substituted for X) as the q-factorial [n]q! .

[edit]Counting

sequences without repetition

In this section, a k-permutation of a set S is an ordered sequence of k distinct elements of S. For example, given the set of letters {C, E, G, I, N, R}, the sequence ICE is a 3permutation, RINGand RICE are 4-permutations, NICER and REIGN are 5-permutations, and CRINGE is a 6-permutation; since the latter uses all letters, it is a permutation of the given set in the ordinary combinatorial sense. ENGINE on the other hand is not a permutation, because of the repetitions: it uses the elements E and N twice. Let n be the size of S, the number of elements available for selection. In constructing a k-permutation, there are n possible choices for the first element of the sequence, and this is then number of 1-permutations. Once it has been chosen, there are n 1 elements of S left to choose from, so a second element can be chosen in n 1 ways, giving a total n (n 1) possible 2-permutations. For each successive element of the sequence, the number of possibilities decreases by 1 which leads to the number of n (n 1) (n 2) ... (n k + 1) possible k-permutations. This gives in particular the number of n-permutations (which contain all elements of S once, and are therefore simply permutations of S): n (n 1) (n 2) ... 2 1, a number that occurs so frequently in mathematics that it is given a compact notation "n!", and is called "n factorial". These npermutations are the longest sequences without repetition of elements of S, which is reflected by the fact that the above formula for the number of k-permutations gives zero whenever k > n. The number of k-permutations of a set of n elements is sometimes denoted by P(n,k) or a similar notation (usually accompanied by a notation for the number of k-combinations of a set of nelements in which the "P" is replaced by "C"). That notation is rarely used in other contexts than that of counting kpermutations, but the expression for the number does arise in

many other situations. Being a product of k factors starting at n and decreasing by unit steps, it is called the k-th falling factorial power of n:

though many other names and notations are in use, as detailed at Pochhammer symbol. When k n the factorial power can be completed by additional factors: nk (n k)! = n!, which allows writing

The right hand side is often given as expression for the number of k-permutations, but its main merit is using the compact factorial notation. Expressing a product of k factors as a quotient of potentially much larger products, where all factors in the denominator are also explicitly present in the numerator, is not particularly efficient; as a method of computation there is the additional danger of overflow or rounding errors. It should also be noted that the expression is undefined when k > n, whereas in those cases the number nk of kpermutations is just 0.

[edit]Permutations [edit]Numbering

in computing

permutations

One way to represent permutations of n is by an integer N with 0 N < n!, provided convenient methods are given to convert between the number and the usual representation of a permutation as a sequence. This gives the most compact representation of arbitrary permutations, and in computing is particularly attractive when n is small enough that N can be held in a machine word; for 32-bit words this means n 12, and for 64-bit words this means n 20. The conversion can be done via the intermediate form of a sequence of

numbers dn, dn1, ..., d2, d1, where di is a non-negative integer less than i (one may omit d1, as it is always 0, but its presence makes the subsequent conversion to a permutation easier to describe). The first step then is simply expression of N in thefactorial number system, which is just a particular mixed radix representation, where for numbers up to n! the bases for successive digits are n, n 1, ..., 2, 1. The second step interprets this sequence as a Lehmer code or (almost equivalently) as an inversion table.

Rothe diagram for

Lehm 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 er code

d9 = 5

d8 = 2

d7 = 5

d6 = 0

d5 = 1

d4 = 3

d3 = 2

d2 = 0

d1 = 0

inversi on 3 table

1 2

4 0

2 0

In the Lehmer code for a permutation , the number dn represents the choice made for the first term 1, the number dn1 represents the choice made for the second term 1 among the remaining n 1 elements of the set, and so forth. More precisely, each dn+1i gives the number of remaining elements strictly less than the term i. Since those remaining elements are bound to turn up as some later term j, the digit dn+1i counts the inversions (i,j) involving i as smaller index (the number of values j for which i < j and i > j). Theinversion table for is quite similar, but here dn+1k counts the number of inversions (i,j) where k = joccurs as the smaller of the two values appearing in inverted order.[8] Both encodings can be visualized by ann by n Rothe diagram[9] (named after Heinrich August Rothe) in which dots at (i,i) mark the entries of the permutation, and a cross at (i,j) marks the inversion (i,j); by the definition of inversions a cross appears in any square that comes both before the dot (j,j) in its column, and before the dot (i,i) in its row. The Lehmer code lists the numbers of crosses in successive rows, while the inversion table lists the numbers of crosses in successive columns; it is just the Lehmer code for the inverse permutation, and vice versa. To effectively convert a Lehmer code dn, dn1, ..., d2, d1 into a permutation of an ordered set S, one can start with a list of the elements of S in increasing order, and for i increasing from 1 to n set i to

the element in the list that is preceded by dn+1i other ones, and remove that element from the list. To convert an inversion tabledn, dn1, ..., d2, d1 into the corresponding permutation, one can traverse the numbers from d1 to dn while inserting the elements of S from largest to smallest into an initially empty sequence; at the step using the number d from the inversion table, the element from S inserted into the sequence at the point where it is preceded by d elements already present. Alternatively one could process the numbers from the inversion table and the elements of S both in the opposite order, starting with a row of n empty slots, and at each step place the element from S into the empty slot that is preceded by dother empty slots. Converting successive natural numbers to the factorial number system produces those sequences in lexicographic order (as is the case with any mixed radix number system), and further converting them to permutations preserves the lexicographic ordering, provided the Lehmer code interpretation is used (using inversion tables, one gets a different ordering, where one starts by comparing permutations by the place of their entries 1 rather than by the value of their first entries). The sum of the numbers in the factorial number system representation gives the number of inversions of the permutation, and the parity of that sum gives the signature of the permutation. Moreover the positions of the zeroes in the inversion table give the values of left-to-right maxima of the permutation (in the example 6, 8, 9) while the positions of the zeroes in the Lehmer code are the positions of the right-to-left minima (in the example positions the 4, 8, 9 of the values 1, 2, 5); this allows computing the distribution of such extrema among all permutations. A permutation with Lehmer

code dn, dn1, ..., d2, d1 has an ascent n i if and only if di di+1.

[edit]Algorithms

to generate

permutations
In computing it may be required to generate permutations of a given sequence of values. The methods best adapted to do this depend on whether one wants some randomly chosen permutations, or all permutations, and in the latter case if a specific ordering is required. Another question is whether possible equality among entries in the given sequence is to be taken into account; if so, one should only generate distinct multiset permutations of the sequence. An obvious way to generate permutations of n is to generate values for the Lehmer code (possibly using the factorial number system representation of integers up to n!), and convert those into the corresponding permutations. However the latter step, while straightforward, is hard to implement efficiently, because it requires n operations each of selection from a sequence and deletion from it, at an arbitrary position; of the obvious representations of the sequence as an array or a linked list, both require (for different reasons) about n2/4 operations to perform the conversion. With n likely to be rather small (especially if generation of all permutations is needed) that is not too much of a problem, but it turns out that both for random and for systematic generation there are simple alternatives that do considerably better. For this reason it does not seem useful, although certainly possible, to employ a special data structure that would allow performing the conversion from Lehmer code to permutation in O(n log n) time.

[edit]Random generation of permutations

Main article: FisherYates shuffle For generating random permutations of a given sequence of n values, it makes no difference whether one means apply a randomly selected permutation of n to the sequence, or choose a random element from the set of distinct (multiset) permutations of the sequence. This is because, even though in case of repeated values there can be many distinct permutations of n that result in the same permuted sequence, the number of such permutations is the same for each possible result. Unlike for systematic generation, which becomes unfeasible for large n due to the growth of the number n!, there is no reason to assume that n will be small for random generation. The basic idea to generate a random permutation is to generate at random one of the n! sequences of integers d1,d2,...,dn satisfying 0 di < i (since d1 is always zero it may be omitted) and to convert it to a permutation through a bijective correspondence. For the latter correspondence one could interpret the (reverse) sequence as a Lehmer code, and this gives a generation method first published in 1938 by Ronald A. Fisher and Frank Yates.[10] While at the time computer implementation was not an issue, this method suffers from the difficulty sketched above to convert from Lehmer code to permutation efficiently. This can be remedied by using a different bijective correspondence: after using di to select an element among i remaining elements of the sequence (for decreasing values of i), rather than removing the element and compacting the sequence by shifting down further elements one place, one swaps the element with the final remaining element. Thus the elements remaining for selection form a consecutive range at each point in time, even though they may not occur in the same order as they did in the

original sequence. The mapping from sequence of integers to permutations is somewhat complicated, but it can be seen to produce each permutation in exactly one way, by an immediate induction. When the selected element happens to be the final remaining element, the swap operation can be omitted. This does not occur sufficiently often to warrant testing for the condition, but the final element must be included among the candidates of the selection, to guarantee that all permutations can be generated. The resulting algorithm for generating a random permutation of a[0], a[1], ..., a[n 1] can be described as follows in pseudocode: for i from n downto 2 do di random element of { 0, ..., i 1 } swap a[di] and a[i 1] This can be combined with the initialization of the array a[i] = i as follows: for i from 0 to n1 do di+1 random element of { 0, ..., i } a[i] a[di+1] a[di+1] i If di+1 = i, the first assignment will copy an uninitialized value, but the second will overwrite it with the correct value i.

[edit]Generation in

lexicographic order
There are many ways to systematically generate all permutations of a given sequence[citation needed]. One classical

algorithm, which is both simple and flexible, is based on finding the next permutation in lexicographic ordering, if it exists. It can handle repeated values, for which case it generates the distinct multiset permutations each once. Even for ordinary permutations it is significantly more efficient than generating values for the Lehmer code in lexicographic order (possibly using the factorial number system) and converting those to permutations. To use it, one starts by sorting the sequence in (weakly) increasing order (which gives its lexicographically minimal permutation), and then repeats advancing to the next permutation as long as one is found. The method goes back to Narayana Pandita in 14th century India, and has been frequently rediscovered ever since.[11] The following algorithm generates the next permutation lexicographically after a given permutation. It changes the given permutation in-place.

1. Find the largest

index k such that a[k] < a[k + 1]. If no such index exists, the permutation is the last permutation.

2. Find the largest

index l such that a[k] < a[l]. Since k + 1 is such an

index, l is well defined and satisfies k < l.

3. Swap a[k] with a[l]. 4. Reverse the sequence

from a[k + 1] up to and including the final element a[n]. After step 1, one knows that all of the elements strictly after position k form a weakly decreasing sequence, so no permutation of these elements will make it advance in lexicographic order; to advance one must increase a[k]. Step 2 finds the smallest value a[l] to replace a[k] by, and swapping them in step 3 leaves the sequence after position k in weakly decreasing order. Reversing this sequence in step 4 then produces its lexicographically minimal permutation, and the lexicographic successor of the initial state for the whole sequence.

[edit]Generation with minimal

changes
Main article: SteinhausJohnson Trotter algorithm An alternative to the above algorithm, the SteinhausJohnsonTrotter algorithm, generates an ordering on all the permutations of a given sequence with the property that any two consecutive permutations in its output differ by swapping two

adjacent values. This ordering on the permutations was known to 17thcentury English bell ringers, among whom it was known as "plain changes". One advantage of this method is that the small amount of change from one permutation to the next allows the method to be implemented in constant time per permutation. The same can also easily generate the subset of even permutations, again in constant time per permutation, by skipping every other output permutation.[11]

[edit]Software

implementations
[edit]Calculator functions
Many scientific calculators and computing software have a built-in function for calculating the number of k-permutations of n.

Casio and TI

calculators: nPr

torial

HP calculators: PERM[12] Mathematica: FallingFac

[edit]Spreadsheet functions
Most spreadsheet software also provides a built-in function for calculating the number of kpermutations of n, called PERMUT in many popular spreadsheets.

[edit]Applications
Permutations are used in the interleaver component of the error detection and correction algorithms, such as turbo codes, for example 3GPP Long Term Evolution mobile telecommunication standard uses these ideas (see 3GPP technical specification 36.212 [13]). Such applications raise the question of fast generation of permutation satisfying certain desirable properties. One of the methods is based on the permutation polynomials.

[edit]See

also

Mathematics portal

Alternating permutation Binomial coefficient Combination Combinatorics Convolution Cyclic order Cyclic permutation Even and odd

permutations

Factorial number system Superpattern Josephus permutation List of permutation topics Levi-Civita symbol Permutation group Permutation pattern

Permutation polynomial Probability Random permutation Rencontres numbers Sorting network Substitution cipher Symmetric group Twelvefold way Weak order of

permutations

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Permutations

[edit]Notes

1. ^ N. L. Biggs, The roots of

combinatorics, Historia Math. 6 (1979) 109136

2. ^ Charalambides, Ch A.
(2002). Enumerative Combinatorics. CRC Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-58488-2909.

3. ^ Humphreys (1996), p. 84 4. ^ Combinatorics of

Permutations, ISBN 1-58488434-7, M. Bona, 2004, p. 3

5. ^ Combinatorics of
Permutations, ISBN 1-58488434-7, M. Bona, 2004, p. 4f

6. ^ Combinatorics of
Permutations, ISBN 1-58488434-7, M. Bona, 2004, p. 43

7. ^ Combinatorics of
Permutations, ISBN 1-58488434-7, M. Bona, 2004, p. 43ff

8. ^ a b D. E. Knuth, The Art

of Computer Programming, Vol 3, Sorting and Searching, Addison-Wesley (1973), p. 12. This book mentions the Lehmer code (without using that name) as a variant C1,...,Cnof inversion tables in exercise 5.1.17 (p. 19), together with two other variants.

9. ^ H. A. Rothe, Sammlung
combinatorisch-analytischer Abhandlungen 2 (Leipzig, 1800), 263305. Cited in,
[8]

p. 14. ^ Fisher, R.A.;

10.

Yates, F. (1948) [1938]. Statistical tables for biological, agricultural and medical research (3rd ed.). London: Oliver & Boyd. pp. 2627. OCLC 14222135.

11.
Tuples and

^ a b Knuth, D.

E. (2005). "Generating All

Permutations". The Art of Computer Programming. 4, Fascicle 2. Addison-Wesley. pp. 126. ISBN 0-201-853930.

12.

^ http://h20331.w

ww2.hp.com/Hpsub/download s/50gProbabilityRearranging_items.pdf

13.
36.212

^ 3GPP TS

[edit]References
Miklos Bona.

"Combinatorics of Permutations", Chapman Hall-CRC, 2004. ISBN 1-58488-434-7.

Donald Knuth. The Art of

Computer Programming, Volume 4: Generating All Tuples and Permutations, Fascicle 2, first printing. Addison-Wesley, 2005. ISBN 0-201-85393-0.

Donald Knuth. The Art of

Computer Programming, Volume 3: Sorting and Searching, Second Edition. Addison-Wesley, 1998. ISBN 0201-89685-0. Section 5.1: Combinatorial Properties of Permutations, pp. 1172.

Humphreys, J. F.. A

course in group theory. Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-19-853459-4

Combination
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Combin" redirects here. For the mountain massif, see Grand Combin. For other uses, see Combination (disambiguation). In mathematics a combination is a way of selecting several things out of a larger group, where (unlike permutations) order does not matter. In smaller cases it is possible to count the number of combinations. For example given three fruit, say an apple, orange and pear, there are three combinations of two that can be drawn from this set: an apple and a pear; an apple and an orange; or a pear and an orange. More formally a k-combination of a set S is a subset of k distinct elements of S. If the set has n elements the number of k-combinations is equal to the binomial coefficient

which can be written using factorials as

whenever

, and which is zero

when

. The set of all k-combinations of a set S is sometimes denoted by

Combinations can refer to the combination of n things taken k at a time without or with repetitions.[1] In the above example repetitions were not allowed. If however it was possible to have two of any one kind of fruit there would be 3 more combinations: one with two apples, one with two oranges, and one with two pears. With large sets, it becomes necessary to use more sophisticated mathematics to find the number of combinations. For example, a poker hand can be described as a 5-combination (k = 5) of cards from a 52 card deck (n = 52). The 5 cards of the hand are all distinct, and the order of cards in the hand does not matter. There are 2,598,960 such combinations, and the chance of drawing any one hand at random is 1 / 2,598,960.
Contents
[hide]

1 Number of k-combinations 1.1 Example of counting

combinations

1.2 Enumerating k-

combinations 2 Number of combinations with repetition

2.1 Example of counting

multicombinations 3 Number of k-combinations for all k 4 Probability: sampling a random combination 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit]Number

of k-combinations

3-element subsets of a 5-element set

Main article: Binomial coefficient The number of k-combinations from a given set S of n elements is often denoted in elementary combinatorics texts by C(n, k), or by a variation such as , , or even (the latter form is

standard in French, Russian, and Polish texts[citation needed]). The same number however occurs in many other mathematical contexts, where it is denoted by (often read as "n choose k"); notably it occurs as

coefficient in the binomial formula, hence its name binomial coefficient. One can define natural numbers k at once by the relation

for all

from which it is clear that

and

for k > n. To see that these coefficients

count k-combinations from S, one can first consider a collection of n distinct variables Xs labeled by the elements s of S, and expand the product over all elements of S:

it has 2n distinct terms corresponding to all the subsets of S, each subset giving the product of the corresponding variables Xs. Now setting all of the Xsequal to the unlabeled variable X, so that the product becomes (1 + X)n, the term for each k-combination from S becomes Xk, so that the coefficient of that power in the result equals the number of such k-combinations. Binomial coefficients can be computed explicitly in various ways. To get all of them for the expansions up to (1 + X)n, one can use (in addition to the basic cases already given) the recursion relation

which follows from (1 + X)n = (1 + X)n 1(1 + X); this leads to the construction of Pascal's triangle. For determining an individual binomial coefficient, it is more practical to use the formula

The numerator gives the number of k-permutations of n, i.e., of sequences of k distinct elements of S, while the denominator gives the number of such k-permutations that give the same k-combination when the order is ignored. When k exceeds n/2, the above formula contains factors common to the numerator and the denominator, and canceling them out gives the relation

This expresses a symmetry that is evident from the binomial formula, and can also be understood in terms of k-combinations by taking the complement of such a combination, which is an (n k)-combination.

Finally there is a formula which exhibits this symmetry directly, and has the merit of being easy to remember:

where n! denotes the factorial of n. It is obtained from the previous formula by multiplying denominator and numerator by (n k)!, so it is certainly inferior as a method of computation to that formula. The last formula can be understood directly, by considering the n! permutations of all the elements of S. Each such permutation gives a k-combination by selecting its first k elements. There are many duplicate selections: any combined permutation of the first k elements among each other, and of the final (n k) elements among each other produces the same combination; this explains the division in the formula. From the above formulas follow relations between adjacent numbers in Pascal's triangle in all three directions:

. Together with the basic cases , these allow

successive computation of respectively all numbers of combinations from the same set (a row in Pascal's triangle), of kcombinations of sets of growing sizes, and of combinations with a complement of fixed size n k.

[edit]Example

of counting combinations
As a concrete example, one can compute the number of five-card hands possible from a standard fifty-two card deck as:

Alternatively one may use the formula in terms of factorials and cancel the factors in the numerator against parts of the factors in the denominator, after which only multiplication of the remaining factors is required:

Another alternative computation, almost equivalent to the first, is based on writing

which gives

When evaluated as 52

1 51 2 50 3

49 4 48 5, this can be computed

using only integer arithmetic. The reason that all divisions are without remainder is that the intermediate results they produce are themselves binomial coefficients. Using the symmetric formula in terms of factorials without performing simplifications gives a rather extensive calculation:

[edit]Enumerating

k-

combinations
One can enumerate all k-combinations of a given set S of n elements in some fixed order, which establishes a bijection from an interval of integers with the set of

those k-combinations. Assuming S is itself ordered, for instance S

= {1,2, ...,n},

there are two natural possibilities for ordering its k-combinations: by comparing their smallest elements first (as in the illustrations above) or by comparing their largest elements first. The latter option has the advantage that adding a new largest element to S will not change the initial part of the enumeration, but just add the new k-combinations of the larger set after the previous ones. Repeating this process, the enumeration can be extended indefinitely with k-combinations of ever larger sets. If moreover the intervals of the integers are taken to start at 0, then the kcombination at a given place i in the enumeration can be computed easily from i, and the bijection so obtained is known as the combinatorial number system. It is also known as "rank"/"ranking" and "unranking" in computational mathematics.[2][3]

[edit]Number

of combinations with repetition

See also: Multiset coefficient

Bijection between 3-element multisets with elements from a 5element set (on the right) and 3-element subsets of a 7-element set (on the left)

A k-combination with repetitions, or kmulticombination, or multiset of size k from a set S is given by a sequence of knot necessarily distinct elements of S, where order is not taken into account: two sequences of which one can be obtained from the other by permuting the terms

define the same multiset. In other words, the number of ways to sample k elements from a set of n elements allowing for duplicates (i.e., with replacement) but disregarding different orderings (e.g. {2,1,2} = {1,2,2}). If S has n elements, the number of such k-multicombinations is also given by a binomial coefficient, namely by

(the case where both n and k are zero is special; the correct value 1 (for the empty 0-multicombination) is given by left hand side right hand side , but not by the ).

[edit]Example

of

counting multicombinations
For example, if you have ten types of donuts (n = 10) on a menu to choose from and you want three donuts (k = 3), the number of ways to choose can be calculated as

The analogy with the kcombination case can be stressed by writing the numerator as a rising power

There is an easy way to understand the above result. Label the elements of S with numbers 0, 1, ..., n 1, and choose a k-combination from the set of numbers { 1, 2, ..., n + k 1 } (so that there are n 1 unchosen numbers). Now change this k-combination into a k-multicombination of S by replacing every (chosen) number x in the kcombination by the element of Slabeled by the number of unchosen numbers less than x. This is always a number in the range of the labels, and it is easy to see that every kmulticombination of S is obtained for one choice of a k-combination. A concrete example may be helpful. Suppose there are 4 types of fruits (apple, orange, pear, banana) at a grocery store, and you want to buy 12 pieces of fruit. So n = 4 and k = 12. Use label 0 for apples, 1 for oranges, 2 for pears, and 3 for bananas. A selection of 12 fruits can be translated into a selection of 12 distinct

numbers in the range 1,...,15 by selecting as many consecutive numbers starting from 1 as there are apples in the selection, then skip a number, continue choosing as many consecutive numbers as there are oranges selected, again skip a number, then again for pears, skip one again, and finally choose the remaining numbers (as many as there are bananas selected). For instance for 2 apples, 7 oranges, 0 pears and 3 bananas, the numbers chosen will be 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15. To recover the fruits, the numbers 1, 2 (not preceded by any unchosen numbers) are replaced by apples, the numbers 4, 5, ..., 10 (preceded by one unchosen number: 3) by oranges, and the numbers 13, 14, 15 (preceded by three unchosen numbers: 3, 11, and 12) by bananas; there are no chosen numbers preceded by exactly 2 unchosen numbers, and therefore no pears in the selection. The total number of possible selections is

[edit]Number

of kcombinations for all k

See also: Binomial coefficient#Sum of coefficients row The number of kcombinations for all k,

, is the sum of the nth row (counting from 0) of the binomial coefficients. These combinations are enumerated by the 1 digits of the set of base 2 numbers counting from 0 to where each digit position is an item from the set of n. ,

[edit]Probability:

sampling a random combination

There are various algorithms to pick out a random

combination from a given set or list. Rejection sampling is extremely slow for large sample sizes. One way to select a k-combination efficiently from a population of size n is to iterate across each element of the population, and at each step pick that element with a dynamically changing probability of

[edit]See

also

Combinatorial
number system

Combinatorics Multiset Binomial

coefficient

Permutation List of
permutation topics

Subset Probability Pascal's

Triangle

[edit]References

1.
nced

^ Erwin

Kreyszig, Adva

Engineering Mathematics, John Wiley & Sons, INC, 1999

2.

^ http://

www.site.uotta wa.ca/~lucia/co urses/516509/GenCombO bj.pdf

3.

^ http://

www.sagemath. org/doc/referen ce/sage/combin at/subset.html

[edit]External

links
C code to
generate all combinations of n elements chosen as k

Many Common
types of permutation and combination math problems, with detailed solutions

 The Unknown
Formula For combinations when choices can be repeated and order does NOT matter

[1] Combinations
with repetitions (by: Akshatha AG and Smitha B)