Question 960965: The instructions say "indicate whether each situation involves a combination or permutation. Then solve." I'm having trouble telling which is which. The first one is "how many ways are there to select five actors from a troupe of nine to improvise a scene?" Once I know which it is, I'll be able to solve it, but I can't tell whether it's a combination or permutation. Thanks!!
Answer by mathluva(1)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! With combinations the order does not matter whereaas with permutations it does.
Some examples should make it clear.
How many different combinations of 2 letters are there in the letters a,b,c,d and e.
we have 10 : - (a,b) , (a,c) (a,d) (a,e) (b,c),(b,d), (b,e) (c,d) (c,e) (d,e)
- the order of each pair does not matter - we could write (a,b) as (b,a).
Howevet permations do require order to matter - so there are 20 permutations of 2 in the 5 letters.
The 5 actors in a group of 9 you mentioned are combinations - nothing is said about the order of each group of 5.
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