Module – III Combinatorics

Textbook: Graph Theory and Combinatorics, Dr. D.S.C.

3.1 The rules of sum and product

1. A license plate consists of two English letters followed by four digits. If repetitions are
allowed, how many of the plates have only vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and even digits?
2. Cars of a particular manufacturer come in 4 models, 12 colors, 3 engine sizes and 2
transmission types.
(a) How many distinct cars of a company can be manufactured?
(b) Of these how many have the same color?
3. Find the number of binary sequences of length n
4. A bit is either 0 or 1. A byte is a sequence of 8 bits. Find
(a) The number of bytes
(b) The number of bytes that begin with 11 and end with 11.
(c) The number of bytes that begin with 11 and do not end with 11.
(d) The number of bytes that begin with 11 or end with 11.
5. Find the number of 3-digit even numbers with no repeated digits.
6. Find the number of
(a) 2-digit even numbers
(b) 2-digit odd numbers
(c) 2-digit odd numbers with distinct digits.
7. In how many ways can three different coins be placed in two different purses?
8. How many 3-digit numbers can be formed by using the 6 digits 2,3,4,5,6,8 if
(a) Repetitions of digits are allowed.
(b) Repetitions of digits are not allowed.

3.2 Permutations
1. Find the number of ways of arranging n different objects around a circle.

2. It is required to seat 5 men and 4 women in a row so that the women occupy the even places.
How many such arrangements are possible?
3. In how many ways can 6 men and 6 women be seated in a row
(a) If any person may sit next to any other
(b) If men and women must occupy alternate seats?
4. How many different strings (sequences) of length 4 can be formed using the letters of the
word FLOWER?
5. Find the number of permutations of all the letters of the word SUCCESS.
6. Find the number of permutations of the letters of the word MASSASAUGA. In how many
of these, all four A’s are together? How many of them begin with S?
7. (a) How many arrangements are there for all letters in the word SOCIOLOGICAL?
(b) In how many of these arrangements (i) A and G are adjacent (II) all the vowels are
adjacent?
8. Find the value of n in each of the following cases
(a) P(n, 2)=90 (b) P(n, 3)=3P(n, 2)
9. How many six-digit numbers can one make using the digits 1, 3, 3, 7, 7, 8?
10. Find the number of distinguishable permutations of all the letters in the following cases.
(a) DISCRETE (b) MATHEMATICS (c) CALCULUS
11. In how many ways can seven books be arranged on a shelf if
(a) any arrangement is allowed.
(b) three particular books must always be together. (c) two particular books must occupy the
ends.

3.3 Combinations
1. How many committees of 5 with a given chairperson can be selected from 12 persons?

2. Find the number of committees of 5 that can be selected from 7 men and 5 women if the
committee is to consist of at least 1 man and at least 1 woman.
3. A certain question paper contains three parts A, B, C with four questions in part A, five
questions in part B and six questions in part C. It is required to answer seven questions selecting
at least two questions from each part. In how many ways can a student select his seven
questions for answering?
4. A woman has 11 close relatives, and she wishes to invite 5 of them to dinner. In how many
ways can she invite them in the following situations
(a) There is no restriction on the choice
(b) Two particular persons will not attend separately
(c) Two particular persons will not attend together
5. Prove the following identities
(a) 𝐶 (𝑛, 𝑟 − 1) + 𝐶 (𝑛, 𝑟) = 𝐶 (𝑛 + 1, 𝑟)
(b) 𝐶 (𝑚, 2) + 𝐶 (𝑛, 2) = 𝐶 (𝑚 + 𝑛, 2) − 𝑚𝑛
6. How many different seven persons committee can be formed each containing 3 women and
4 men from an available set of 20 women and 30 men?
7. A question paper contains 10 questions of which 7 are to be answered. In how many ways
can a student select the 7 questions (i) if he can choose any seven? (ii) if he should select three
questions from the first five and four questions from the last five? (iii) if he should select at
least three from the first five?

3.4 Combinations with Repetitions

1. A bag contains coins of seven different denominations, with at least one dozen coins in each
denomination. In how many ways can we select a dozen coins from the bag?
2. In how many ways can 10 identical pencils be distributed among 5 children in the following
cases
(a) There are no restrictions
(b) Each child gets at least one pencil
(c) The youngest child gets at least two pencils
3. Find the number of nonnegative integer solutions of the equation
𝑥1 + 𝑥2 + 𝑥3 + 𝑥4 + 𝑥5 = 8
4. A total amount of Rs.1500 is to be distributed to 3 poor students A, B, C of a class. In how
many ways the distribution can be made in multiples of Rs. 100
(a) If every one of these must get at least Rs. 300?
(b) If A must get at least Rs. 500, and B and C must get at least Rs. 400 each?
5. In how many ways can one distribute eight identical balls into four distinct containers so that
(a) no container is left empty? (b) the fourth container gets an odd number of balls?
6. In how many ways can we distribute 7 apples and 6 oranges among 4 children so that each
child gets at least 1 apple?
3.5 The Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion
1. Among the students in a hostel, 12 students study Mathematics (A), 20 study Physics (B),
20 study Chemistry (C), and 8 study Biology (D). There are 5 students for A and B, 7 students
for A and C, 4 students for A and D, 16 students for B and C, 4 students for B and D, and 3
students for C and D. There are 3 students for A, B and C, 2 for A, B and D, 2 for B, C and D,
3 for A, C and D. Finally, there are 2 who study all of these subjects. Furthermore, there are 71
students who do not study any of these subjects. Find the total number of students in the hostel.
2. Determine the number of positive integers n such that 1 ≤ 𝑛 ≤ 100 and 𝑛 is not divisible
by 2, 3, or 5
3. How many integers between 1 and 300 (inclusive) are
(a) Divisible by at least one of 5, 6, 8?
(b) Divisible by none of 5, 6, 8?
4. In how many ways 5 number of a’s, 4 number of b’s and 3 number of c’s can be arranged so
that all the identical letters are not in a single block?

3.6 Pigeon-hole principle

1. Prove that if 30 dictionaries in a library contain a total of 61,327 pages, then at least one of
the dictionaries must have at least 2045 pages.
2. If 5 colors are used to paint 26 doors, prove that at least 6 doors will have the same color.
3. How many persons must be chosen in order that at least five of them will have birth days in
the same calendar month?
4. Prove that in a set of 13 children at least two have birthdays during the same month.
5. If three men and five women form a queue, show that at least two women will be next to
each other.

3.7 Generating functions

1. Find the sequences generated by the following functions:
(a) (3 + 𝑥)3 (b)3𝑥 3 + 𝑒 2𝑥
2. Find the generating functions for the following sequences:
(a) 1,2,3,4,…. (b) 0,1,-2,3,-4,…. (c)12 , 22 , 32 , 42 , . . . . ..
(d) 13 , 23 , 33 , 43 , . . . . .. (e) 1,1,0,1,1,1,….. (f)8,26,54,92,….
3. Determine the coefficient of
(1+𝑥)4
(a) 𝑥 2 in 𝑥 3 (1 − 2𝑥 )10 (b) 𝑥 5 in (1 − 2𝑥 )−7 (c) 𝑥 15 in (1−𝑥)4
(d) 𝑥 27 in (𝑥 4 + 𝑥 5 + 𝑥 6 + ⋯ )5
(e) 𝑥 18 in (𝑥 + 𝑥 2 + 𝑥 3 + 𝑥 4 + 𝑥 5 )(𝑥 2 + 𝑥 3 + 𝑥 4 + ⋯ )5

3.8 Recurrence Relations

1. Solve the recurrence relation 𝑎𝑛+1 = 4𝑎𝑛 , for 𝑛 ≥ 0, given that 𝑎0 = 3.

2. Solve the recurrence relation 𝑎𝑛 = 7𝑎𝑛−1 , for 𝑛 ≥ 1, given that 𝑎2 = 98.

3. Solve the recurrence relation 𝑎𝑛 − 3𝑎𝑛−1 = 5 × 3𝑛 , for 𝑛 ≥ 1, given that 𝑎0 = 2.
4. The number of virus affected files in a system is 1000 (to start with) and this increases 250%
every two hours. Use a recurrence relation to determine the number of virus affected files in
the system after one day?
5. If 𝑎𝑛 is a solution of the recurrence relation 𝑎𝑛+1 = 𝑘 𝑎𝑛 for 𝑛 ≥ 0, and 𝑎3 = 153/49, 𝑎5 =
3
1377/2401, what is k? [Ans: 𝑘 = ± 7]

6. Solve the recurrence relation 𝑎𝑛 − 3𝑎𝑛−1 = 5 × 7𝑛 , for 𝑛 ≥ 1, given that 𝑎0 = 2.

5 1
[𝑎𝑛 = 4 7𝑛+1 − 4 3𝑛+3 ]

7. Find the recurrence relation and the initial condition for the sequence
0,2,6,12,20,30,42………. Hence find the general term of the sequence. [𝑎𝑛 = 𝑛2 + 𝑛]
8. A bank pays a certain % of annual interest on deposits, compounding the interest once in 3
months. If a deposit doubles in 6 years and 6 months, what is the annual % of interest paid by
the bank? [10.8]