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Given that set A contains 10 distinguishable objects and set B contains 6 distinguishable objects.

I will like to choose 2 objects from set A (with replacement): ${10 \choose 1}^2$

I will also like to choose 4 objects from set B (with replacement): ${6 \choose 1}^4$

Now, the next step is where I am confused. The next step will be to take these 2 objects selected from set A and 4 objects selected from set B and arrange them in a single line where their position matters.

My confusion stems from whether this step will be equivalent to:

  • Case 1: 6!
  • Case 2: ${6 \choose 2} * 2! * {4 \choose 4} * 4!$

where in Case 2, E.g. ${6 \choose 2}$ refers to choosing 2 positions out of the 6 positions in a line and then permuting them afterwards with 2!

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    You have the right concern. The number of ways to do the arrangements will depend on whether any duplicates were selected in the first step. You should count a few different scenarios separately (four of them, of which your cases are two). – Karl Mar 20 '23 at 16:22
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    both cases give the same value. Did you mean some other expression for case 2? – D S Mar 20 '23 at 16:58
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    this happens because case 2 is just another way to count case 1 – D S Mar 20 '23 at 16:59
  • Ah yeah, I missed that the two given expressions are the same. – Karl Mar 20 '23 at 17:28

2 Answers2

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Your description makes it sound as if at first order doesn’t matter and then you start arranging things on a line and then order matters. But your original counts of $10^2$ and $6^4$ were already counts of ordered tuples. Assuming that that was indeed what you wanted, it’s then not so complicated to combine these ordered tuples into an ordered arrangement. Just select $2$ spots in the ordered $6$-tuple for the $2$ objects from $A$ (thereby also selecting the other $4$ spots for the $4$ objects from $B$) and then fill the two ordered tuples into the combined ordered tuple in order. Thus, you have $10^2\cdot6^4\cdot\binom62$ different arrangements.

joriki
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As the comment of Karl indicates, neither Case 1 nor Case 2 is appropriate here. Although I could be mistaken, I strongly suspect that (as Karl's comment also indicates), in order to complete the problem, you have to re-work the first part of the problem. That is, you have to consider the mutually exclusive cases of how many distinct objects were taken from A and from B.

The (very tedious) work is shown below. I emphasize that I may well be overlooking a more elegant approach to the problem.


For selecting items from A :

  • There are $~\displaystyle (10)~$ ways of selecting the same item twice.
    I will use the syntax [A:2] to represent this possibility.

  • There are $~\displaystyle \binom{10}{2} = 45~$ ways of selecting two distinct items.
    I will use the syntax [A:1-1] to represent this possibility.

Note
$45 + 10 \neq 10^2 = 100,~$ and $~100~$ was reported by the OP (i.e. original poster). The discrepancy is explained by noting that when two distinct items are selected, the order of selection is irrelevant to the second part of the problem.


For selecting items from B :

  • There are $~\displaystyle \binom{6}{1} = 6~$ ways of selecting the same item, four times.
    I will use the syntax [B:4] to represent this possibility.

  • There are $~\displaystyle (6 \times 5) = 30~$ ways of selecting one item three times, and then a second item one time.
    I will use the syntax [B:3-1] to represent this possibility.

  • There are $~\displaystyle \binom{6}{2} = 15~$ ways of selecting one item twice, and then selecting a separate item twice.
    I will use the syntax [B:2-2] to represent this possibility.

  • There are $~\displaystyle \binom{6}{2} \times 4 = 60~$ ways of selecting two distinct items, one time each, and then selecting a third item twice.
    I will use the syntax [B:2-1-1] to represent this possibility.

  • There are $~\displaystyle \binom{6}{4} = 15~$ ways of selecting four distinct items.
    I will use the syntax [B:1-1-1-1] to represent this possibility.


In effect, the above case work has partitioned the two positive integers $~4~$ and $~2.$

Now, in order to complete the problem, unfortunately, the $~2 \times 5 = 10~$ cases have to handled separately. To keep this answer as short as possible, I will leave the reader to review Multinomials on their own.

The basic idea is that if you have $~k~$ distinct items, and each item is selected $~a_i~$ times, where $~i \in \{1,2,\cdots,k\},~$ and if $~\displaystyle \sum_{i=1}^k a_i = n$:

then the number of distinct ways of arranging the items in a row is

$$\frac{n!}{(a_1)! \times (a_2)! \times \cdots \times (a_k)!} \tag1 $$

For ease of syntax, I will use the expression $~\displaystyle \binom{n}{a_1,a_2,\cdots,a_k}~$ to represent the expression in (1) above.


Then, the number of distinct distributions of the items in a row is given by summing each of the $~10~$ cases separately. This summation is detailed below:

  • [A:2] $~\times~$ [B:4] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [10 \times 6] \times \binom{6}{2,4} ~$ ways.

  • [A:2] $~\times~$ [B:3-1] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [10 \times 30] \times \binom{6}{2,3,1} ~$ ways.

  • [A:2] $~\times~$ [B:2-2] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [10 \times 15] \times \binom{6}{2,2,2} ~$ ways.

  • [A:2] $~\times~$ [B:2-1-1] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [10 \times 60] \times \binom{6}{2,2,1,1} ~$ ways.

  • [A:2] $~\times~$ [B:1-1-1-1] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [10 \times 15] \times \binom{6}{2,1,1,1,1} ~$ ways.


  • [A:1-1] $~\times~$ [B:4] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [45 \times 6] \times \binom{6}{1,1,4} ~$ ways.

  • [A:1-1] $~\times~$ [B:3-1] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [45 \times 30] \times \binom{6}{1,1,3,1} ~$ ways.

  • [A:1-1] $~\times~$ [B:2-2] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [45 \times 15] \times \binom{6}{1,1,2,2} ~$ ways.

  • [A:1-1] $~\times~$ [B:2-1-1] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [45 \times 60] \times \binom{6}{1,1,2,1,1} ~$ ways.

  • [A:1-1] $~\times~$ [B:1-1-1-1] $~:~~~~\displaystyle [45 \times 15] \times \binom{6}{1,1,1,1,1,1} ~$ ways.


Addendum
After reviewing Joriki's more elegant answer, I sanity-checked the two results. My final computation exactly agrees with his.

Since I don't believe in coincidences, I decided to stretch my intuition to understand $~\color{red}{why}~$ the computations agree.

For simplicity, consider the situation where two distinct items are selected from A and one item is selected four times from B.

My enumeration of this particular possibility is:

$$\binom{10}{2} \times \binom{6}{1} \times \binom{6}{1,1,4} = 45 \times 6 \times 30 = 8100.$$

Joriki's enumeration of this particular possibility is:

$$[10 \times 9] \times [6] \times \binom{6}{2} = 90 \times 6 \times 15 = 8100.$$

user2661923
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  • I disagree with the note you added at the top of your answer. I'm only counting each such configuration once. If I understand your answer correctly (I'm not sure I do), we're counting the same thing, just with wildly different efficiency :-) Our answers differ only slightly, not by a large factor as would have to be the case if your note was correct. I suspect that the small discrepancy is due to a small mistake in one of your calculations. – joriki Mar 20 '23 at 17:28
  • @joriki Thanks for the heads up. I could well have misinterpreted your analysis. I will edit my answer accordingly. Also, I did double-check my Math, which I will now triple-check. If you happen to spot an error in my Math, please advise. – user2661923 Mar 20 '23 at 17:30
  • Actually, the error was just in my addition of your numbers :-) They do add up to my result. – joriki Mar 20 '23 at 17:35