SOLUTION: Find how many different groups of 2 elements, with repetition, can be formed with the letters: a, b, c, d. I solved it like this: 5!/2!*2!=10, but im not sure

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Question 1189564: Find how many different groups of 2 elements, with repetition, can be formed
with the letters: a, b, c, d. I solved it like this: 5!/2!*2!=10, but im not sure

Answer by ikleyn(52781)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.
Find how many different groups of 2 elements, with repetition, can be formed
with the letters: a, b, c, d.
I solved it like this: 5!/2!*2!=10, but im not sure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Your solution is  INCORRECT.   (Notice that the number of 5 is irrelevant to the problem,
so 5! is nowhere to come . . . )


The answer and the solution depend on one important agreement:  if you consider  ORDERED  or  UNORDERED  pairs.

Unfortunately,  your problem does not specify,  if the pairs are ordered or unordered,  and it is the problem's  FAULT.


=============== S O L U T I O N ===============


                        for  ORDERED  pairs


From the context,  there are many/enough instances of each letter  (more concretely,  at least two instances of each letter).

You have 4 letters.


If repetition is allowed, then you may have any of 4 letters in the first position and any of 4 letters in the second position.


In all, it gives 4*4 = 16 different groups of 2 letters each.


                        For UNORDERED pairs


For unordered pairs, the pair (a,b) is the same as (b,a).


Then there are   = 6 pairs  with different (non-repeating) letters

PLUS  4  pairs with repeating letters (a,a), (b,b), (c,c) and (d,d).


It gives, in total, 6 + 4 = 10 such groups.


So,  there are two agreements;  two way to form pairs,  and, correspondingly,  there are two different answers.

Again :   the fact that the problem does not specify which of the two possible agreements work - - - is the  FAULT  of the problem.


-------------


Visually,  the model for the first case is a full  4 x 4  matrix filled with ordered pairs of letters  (16 ordered pairs).

For the second case,  the model is the upper triangular part of the  4 x 4  matrix with its diagonal included.



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