SOLUTION: five couples want to have their pictures taken. In how many ways can they arrange themselves in a row if a. Couples must stay together? b. They may stand anywhere?

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Question 1178588: five couples want to have their pictures taken. In how many ways can they arrange themselves in a row if
a. Couples must stay together?
b. They may stand anywhere?

Answer by ikleyn(52776) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
.

(a)  Considering five couples as five special objects,

     we have 5! = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120 permutations of these objects.



     Next, we have 2 possible permutations (A,B) --> (B,A)  inside each of 5 pairs.

    
     These permutations are independent ---  so, there are  2%5E5%2A5%21 = 32*120 = 3840 permutations of 5 couples, satisfying the imposed conditions.




(b)  If no restrictions are imposed, then there are 10! = 10*9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 3628800 possible permutations of 10 persons.


Solved.

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On Permutations,  see introductory lessons
    - Introduction to Permutations
    - PROOF of the formula on the number of Permutations
    - Simple and simplest problems on permutations
    - Special type permutations problems
    - Problems on Permutations with restrictions
    - OVERVIEW of lessons on Permutations and Combinations
in this site.

Also,  you have this free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-II in this site
    - ALGEBRA-II - YOUR ONLINE TEXTBOOK.

The referred lessons are the part of this online textbook under the topic  "Combinatorics: Combinations and permutations".


Save the link to this textbook together with its description

Free of charge online textbook in ALGEBRA-II
https://www.algebra.com/algebra/homework/complex/ALGEBRA-II-YOUR-ONLINE-TEXTBOOK.lesson

into your archive and use when it is needed.