Porisma

Worked solution

Arrange STATISTICS without distinguishing repeated copies

In how many ways can the letters of the word STATISTICS be arranged?

CJC · Lecture · Example 6

Count the letters by type

There are 10 letters:3 S,3 T,2 I,1 A and 1 C. Treating all copies as distinct would give 10! arrangements, but it would overcount swaps among the 3 S copies,3 T copies and 2 I copies.

How did this part go?

Divide out the indistinguishable swaps

The number of distinct arrangements is 10!/(3! 3! 2!)=50,40010!/(3!\,3!\,2!)=50{,}400. Factors 1! for A and C do not change the value. This is the Teacher-completed count.

How did this part go?

Common mistakes

Divide by a factorial for each repeated letter type, not just by the number of repeated letters.

Read the hint