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Question: Suppose there are m girls and n boys in a class. What is the number of ways of arranging them in a line so that all the girls are together? (Biggs, Discrete Mathematics 2nd ed, Exercise 10.7.5)

My solution

Say $m=4$ and $n=3$

The number of ways they can be arranged are:

G - a girl, B - a boy

position 1: [G G G G][B B B] position 2: [B][G G G G][B B] position 3: [B B][G G G G][B] position 4: [B B B][G G G G] 

So in this case the group of girls can be placed in $4$ different positions. On each position the group of girls can internally be arranged in $4!$ different ways, and the boys can be arranged in $3!$ different ways.

Hence the total number of arrangements are $4!*3!*4$

Converting the answer back to variables, I end up with: $m!*n!*(n + 1)$

The book provides no solution, so I would really like to know if I came up with the right answer..

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    Ah, I see. Thank you all for your help! :)2012-08-08

1 Answers 1

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The basic idea and the answer are correct, but for a complete solution, you should show it in abstract context, so start with arbitrary (unspecified) $m,n$ and try to show that you get $(n+1)!m!$ as a result.