Problema Solution
Of the 50 states, 5 are randomly selected to have their governor participate in a summit. How many different groups of governors can go?
50!/ (50-5)!*5! = ?
Answer provided by our tutors
Combination is a way of selecting members from a grouping, such that the order of selection does not matter.
In our case the order doesn't matter.
A formula for the number of possible combinations of k objects from a set of n objects is
C(n, k) = n!/((n - k)! k!)
where n! = 1*2*3*...*(n-1)
n = 50
k = 5
C(50, 5) = 50!/ (50-5)!*5! = 50!/(45! 5!) = (46*47*48*49*50)/120 = 1,228,760 different groups of governors.