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Problem 11 Counting Probability

The document presents a problem about counting the number of ways a spider can put on its socks and shoes for its eight legs. It provides two solutions: 1) There are 16 actions to arrange (8 shoes and 8 socks) which can be arranged in 16! ways, but only half satisfy the condition that the sock must be put on before the shoe for each leg. So the number of ways is 16!/2. 2) The situation can be modeled as the number of permutations of aabbccddeeffgghh, which is also 16!/2. The document then presents a follow up counting problem about the number of orders eight clay targets can be broken under certain rules.

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411 views

Problem 11 Counting Probability

The document presents a problem about counting the number of ways a spider can put on its socks and shoes for its eight legs. It provides two solutions: 1) There are 16 actions to arrange (8 shoes and 8 socks) which can be arranged in 16! ways, but only half satisfy the condition that the sock must be put on before the shoe for each leg. So the number of ways is 16!/2. 2) The situation can be modeled as the number of permutations of aabbccddeeffgghh, which is also 16!/2. The document then presents a follow up counting problem about the number of orders eight clay targets can be broken under certain rules.

Uploaded by

seansoni
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Problem 11: Counting AMC 12 2001 #16

Problem: A spider has one sock and one shoe for each of its eight legs. In how many
different orders can the spider put on its socks and shoes, assuming that, on each leg, the
sock must be put on before the shoe?

Solution 1: Let the action of putting on shoe n be denoted by an and the action of putting
on sock n be denoted by bn . Then we can arrange a1 -a8 and b1 -b8 in a total of 16! ways.
However, only half of these will have a1 before b1 . A similar argument can be given for each
16!
a2 -a8 . So our answer is 8 .
2

Solution 2: The situation can be modeled by the number of distinct permutations of


16!
aabbccddeef f gghh, which is 8 .
2

Practice Problem: In a shooting match, eight clay targets are arranged in two hanging
columns of three targets each and one column of two targets. A marksman is to break all
the targets according to the following rules:

1) The marksman first chooses a column from which a target is to be broken.


2) The marksman must then break the lowest remaining target in the chosen column.

If the rules are followed, in how many different orders can the eight targets be broken? (AIME
1990 #8) [Answer: 560]

Solution was written by Sean Soni and compiled from Art of Problem Solving Forums.

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