Summary

This document explains the concept of combinations and permutations, including examples with and without repetition. It details the methods used in counting combinations of elements in a set.

Full Transcript

**Definition of combination** The combination is a method used is statistics, which **consist in finding the ways we can pick some elements from a data set.** The general concept of combination and permutation are pretty similar and because of that at first we cannot see the difference of between t...

**Definition of combination** The combination is a method used is statistics, which **consist in finding the ways we can pick some elements from a data set.** The general concept of combination and permutation are pretty similar and because of that at first we cannot see the difference of between the two, but, the difference between the combination and permutation is that in the combination the order of the elements does not matter, this means that as long as the combination of picked elements are the same, this will be counted as only one combination. To understand better the meaning and the use of the combination we are going to show the following example: If between 5 people we want to randomly choose two of them to participate in an act, in the permutation the order in which we pick the people would matter, for example, if we first pick the person A, and then the person B, this would one permutation, and if we pick the person B and then the person A, this would be another permutation, **but in combination, this two scenarios would count only as one combination, no matter if the selection order is "A and B" or "B and A"** A combination is written by the letters nCr, where "n" is the number of elements of a set, and "r" is the number of elements we are going to pick, where "r" cannot be major than "n", because this would produce an error. Another property about the combination is that there are two types of combinations, one with repetition, and another one without repetition. **Combination with repetition** This is when the elements of a set can be repeated, to clarify this type, here is an example: A person goes to a candy shop, where there are 10 different flavors of candy, but this person is only going to take 4, one for each one of his children, this is an example of combination with repetition, because although there are 10 different flavors, anything disallows this person to pick the same flavor twice, trice or even four times. **Formula with repetition** **Combination without repetition** It is when the elements of a set cannot be repeated, for example: in a company where there work 20 people they take a decision of forming a directive composed by 3 people, in this case we would have a combination without repetition, because a person cannot be chosen twice. **Formula without repetition** ![](media/image2.png) **Example 1:** A person is going to a candy shop where there are 8 types of Flavors, if this person is only going to buy 3, define every combination possible ![](media/image4.png) ![](media/image6.png) ![](media/image8.png)

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