0
$\begingroup$

I have the following task:

At a seminar are 3 doctorands and each of them gives 1 presentation. There are 3 master students and each of them gives 2 presentations. There are 3 bachelor students and each of them gives 2 presentations. And there is a professor that gives only one presentation.

How many possibilities are there for the order of the lecturers?

I have modelled the problem like that - each presentation is assigned to a lecturer:

$$\{D_1, D_2, D_3, M_1, M_1, M_2, M_2, M_3, M_3, B_1, B_1, B_2, B_2, B_3, B_3, P\}$$

Now my guess was to get the possibilities for the order for all of the presentations and subtracting all the possibilities, where a lecturer with 2 presentations gives them consecutively.

For the order of presentations, where each lecturer gives only one presentation until starts its own one (one example)

$$presentations:=\{D_1, D_2, D_3, M_1, M_2, M_1, M_3, M_2, M_3, B_1, B_2, B_1, B_3, B_2, B_3, P\}$$

there results the same order of lecturers: $$order of lecturers:=\{D_1, D_2, D_3, M_1, M_2, M_1, M_3, M_2, M_3, B_1, B_2, B_1, B_3, B_2, B_3, P\}$$

If we look at the possibilities, where lecturers can give their presentations consecutively (a person with two presentations will give one and after that the next one)

$$presentations:=\{D_1, D_2, D_3, M_1, M_1, M_2, M_2, M_3, M_3, B_1, B_1, B_2, B_2, B_3, B_3, P\}$$

results a shorter order of lecturers:

$$order of lecturers:=\{D_1, D_2, D_3, M_1, M_2, M_3, B_1, B_2, B_3, P\}$$

So I have first calculated the possibilities for $16$ presentations and then subtracted the possibilities for $10$ (possibilities where lecturers give presentations consecutively).

$\frac{16!}{(16-16)!}- \frac{10!}{(10-10)!}= 20 922 789 888 000 - 3 628 800 = 20 922 786 259 200$

Question: Could that be correct? And a more important one: Is there a better and elegant way to solve that task?

  • 0
    Where does it say that people can't give consecutive presentations ?2017-02-06
  • 0
    @trueblueanit I have updated my post. People can give consecutive presentations. The problem there is that the order of lecturers is shorter then: 10 < 16.2017-02-06

1 Answers 1

0

The question is a bit ambiguous,
but going by the wording "how many ways are there for the order of the lecturers,

number of ways = $\dfrac{16!}{3!6!6!1!}$