Notes by Lex Toumbourou

Lesson 10.1 The basics of Combinatorics

• Combinatorics
  • The math topic that studies "finite" countable discrete structures: collections or arrangements of objects.
  • Involves counting objects and studying the mathematical properties of different arrangement of objects.
  • Applications include programming, physics, economics and other fields like prob theory.

Lesson 10.103 The basics of counting

• Product Rule
  • To determine the number of different possible outcomes in a complex process, we can break the problem into a sequence of two independent tasks:
    • if there are $n$ ways of doing the first task
    • for each of these ways of doing the first task, there are $m$ ways of doing the 2nd task.
    • then there are n * m different ways of doing the whole process.
  • Example
    • Problem
      • Consider a restaurant offering a combination meal where a person can order from each of the following categories:
        • 2 salads
        • 3 main dishes
        • 4 side dishes
        • 3 desserts
      • How many combinations meals are there to choose from?
    • Solution
      • The problem can be broken down into 4 independent events:
        • selecting a salad
        • selecting a main dish
        • selecting a side dish
        • selecting a dessert
      • For each event, the number of available options is:
        • 2 for the first event
        • 3 for the 2nd event
        • 4 for the third event
        • 3 for the fourth event
      • Thus, there are 2 * 3 * 4 * 3 = 72 combination meals.
  • Product rule in terms of sets
    • Let A be the set of ways to do the first task and B the set of ways to do 2nd task.
    • If A and B are disjoint, then:
      • The number ways to do both task 1 and 2 can be represented as: $|AxB| = |A| \cdot |B|$
        • The cardinality of the cross product of A and B.
      • In other words: the num elements in the Cartesian product of these sets is the product of number of elements in each set.
• Addition Rule
  • Suppose a task 1 can be done n ways and a task 2 can be done in m ways.
  • Assume that both tasks are independent, that is, performing task 1 doesn't mean performing task 2 and vice versa.
  • In this case, the number of ways of executing task 1 or task 2 is equal to n + m.
  • Example
    • The computing department must choose either a student or a member of academic staff as a representative for university committee.
    • How many ways of choose this representative are there if there are 10 academic staff and 77 math students, and no one is both a member of academic staff and a student?
  • Solution
    • By the addition rule, there are 10 + 77 ways of choosing this representative.
• The sum rule in terms of sets
  • Let A be the set of ways to do task 1 and B the set of ways to do task 2, where A and B are disjoint sets.
    • The sum rule can be phrased in terms of sets:
      • $|A \cup B| = |A| + |B|$ as long as $A$ and $B$ are disjoint sets.
• Combining the sum and product rules
  • We can combine the sum and product rules to solve more complex problems.
  • Example:
    • Suppose a letter in a programming language can be either a single letter or a letter followed by 2 digits.
      • What is the number of possible labels?
  • Solution:
    • The number of labels with one letter only is 26
    • Using the product rule the number of labels with a letter folowed by 2 digits is 26 x 10 x10
    • Using the sum rule the total number of labels is 26 + 26>10.10 = 2,626.
• Subtraction Rule
  • Suppose a task can be done either in one of $n_1$ ways or in one of $n_2$ ways.
  • Then the total number of ways to do the task is $n_1 + n_2$ minus the number of ways common to the two different ways.
  • Also known as the principle of inclusion-exclusion.
    • $|A \cup B| = |A| + |B| - |A \cap B|$
  • Example
    • How many binary bit strings of length eigth either start with a 1 bit or end with the 2 bits 00?
    • Solution:
      • Number of bit strings of length eight that start with a 1 bit: $2.2.2.2.2.2.2 = 2^7 = 128$
      • Number of bit strings of length eight that end with the 2 bits 00: $2^6 = 64$
      • Number of bit trings of length 8 that start with a 1 bit and end with bits 00 is 2^5 = 32
      • Using substraction rule:
        • the number of bit strings either starting with a 1 or ending with 00 is 128 + 64 - 32 = 160.
• Division Rule
  • Suppose a tak can be done using a procedure that can be carried out in n ways, for every way w, exactly d of the n ways correspond to w.
    • Then this task can be done $n/d$ ways
  • In terms of sets: if the finite set A is the union of n pair-wise disjoint subsets each with d elements, the $n = |A| / d$
  • In terms of functions: if f is a function from A to B, where both are finite sts, and for every value y \in B there are exactly d values x \in A such that $f(x) = y$, then $|B| = |A|/d$
  • Example:
    • In how many ways can we seat 4 people around a table, where 2 seating arrangements are considered the same when each person has the same left and right neighbour
    • Solution:
      • Let's first number the seats around the table from 1 to 4 proceeeding clockwise:
        • There are 4 ways to select the person for seat 1, three for seat 2, two for seat 3 and one for seat 4
        • Thus there are $4.3.2.1 = 24$ ways to order the four people.
        • Since 2 seating arrangments are the same when each person has the same left and right neighbour, for every choice for seat 1, we get the same seating.
        • Therefore, by using the division rule, there are $24/4 = 6$ different seating arrangements.

Lesson 10.105 The pigeonhole principal

• Pigeonhole principal
  • One of simplest and most useful ideas in maths
  • Let K be a positive integer:
    • If k is a positive integer and k+1 objects are placed into k boxes, then at least one box contains 2 or more objects.
    • Proof by contrapositive:
      • Suppose none of the k boxes has more than 1 object.
      • The total number of objects would be at most k.
      • Which contradicts the statement that we have k+1 objects.
    • Example:
      • If a flock of 10 pigeons roosts in a set of 9 pigeonholes, 1 of the pigeon holes must have more than 1 pigeon.
    • Exercise
      • Prove that a function f from a set with k + 1 elements to a set with k elements is not a one-to-one.
      • Solution: We can prove this using the peigonhole principle:
        • Create a $box_y$, for each element y in the co-domain of f
        • Put all elements x from the domain in the box for y such that f(x) = y
        • Because there are k + 1 elements and only k boxes, at least one box has two or more elements.
        • Therefore, f is not one-to-one.
• The generalised pigeonhole principle
  • If N objects are placed into k boxes, then there is at least one box containing at least ceil(N/k) objects, where ceil(x) is called the ceiling function, which represents the round-up value of x
  • Let's prove it by contrapositive:
    • Suppose none of the boxes contains more than $\lceil N/k \rceil - 1$ objects.
    • Then the total number of objects is at most: $k(\lceil\frac{N}{k}\rceil - 1) < k((\frac{N}{k} + 1) - 1) = N$
    • This is a contradiction because there is a total of N objects.
  • Example:
    • How many cards must be selected from a standard deck of 52 cards to guarantee that at least four cards of the same suit are chosen?
    • Solution:
      • Assume 4 boxes, one for each suit.
      • Using the generalised pigeonhole principle, at least one box contains at least $\lceil \frac{N}{4}\rceil$, where N is the number of cards selected.
      • At least 4 cards of one suit are selected if $\lceil \frac{N}{4} \rceil \geq 4$
      • The smallest integer N such that $\lceil \frac{N}{4} \rceil \geq 4$ is equal to 13.

Video: 10.107 Permutations and combinations

• Many counting problems can be solved by finding the number of ways to arrange a specified number of distinct elements of a set of particular size, where the order of this element matters, and in some cases doesn't.
• This lecture discusses permutations and combinations, which are used to solve this counting problem.
• Permutation
  • A permutation of a set of distinct objects is an ordered arrangement of these objects.
  • An ordered arrangement of r elements of a set is called an r-permutation.
  • The number of r-permutations of a set with n elements is denoted by $P(n,r)$
  • Example:
    • Let $S = \{1, 2, 3\}$
    • The ordered arrangement 3,1,2 is a 3-permutation of S.
    • The ordered arrangement 3,2 is a 2-permutation of S
    • The 2-permutations of S = {1, 2, 3} are 1,2; 1,3; 2,1; 2,3; 3,1 and 3,2
    • Hence, P(3,2) = 6
  • Number of permutations
    • If n is a positive integer and r is an integer with $r \leq n$, then there are $P(n, r) = n(n - 1)(n - 2) ... (n - (r-1))$ r-permutations of a set with n distinct elements.
    • We can formulate this as:
      • $P(n, r) = \frac{n!}{(n - r)!}$
    • Proof:
      • By product rule:
        • there are n different ways for choosing the 1st element.
        • n-1 ways for choosing the 2nd element.
        • n -3 ways for choosing the 3rd element, etc.
        • there are $(n - (r - 1))$ ways to choose the last element.
        • hence, $P(n, r) = n(n - 1)(n - 2) ... (n - (r - 1))$
        • $P(n, 0) = 1$, since there is only one way to order zero.
      • Example
        • How many possible ways are there of selecting a first prize winner, a 2nd price winner and third-prize winner from 50 different people?
        • Solution:
          • P(50, 3) = 50 * 49 * 48 = 117,600
• Combination
  • An r-combination of elements of a set is an unordered selection of r elements from the set.
  • An r-combination is a subset of the set with r elements.
  • The number of r-combinations of a set with n distinct elements is denoted by $C(n, r) = \binom{n}{r}$
  • The notation used is called binomical coefficient
• Number of combinations
  • The number of r-combinations of a set with n distinct elements can be formulated as:
    • $C(n, r) = \frac{n!}{(n-r)!r!} = \frac{P(n, r)}{r!}$
  • $C(n, r)$ can be referred to as n choose r
  • It follows that $C(n, r) = C(n, n - r)$
  • Example
    • How many ways are there of selecting six players from a 20-member tennis team to make a trip to an intenational competition?
    • $C(20, 6) = \frac{20!}{6!14!} = \frac{20 . 19 . 18 . 17 . 16 . 15}{6 . 5 . 4 . 3 . 2} = 38,760$