Combinatorics

Probability: Cards vs Dice

(A new question of the week) A couple recent questions involved related subtleties in probability and combinatorics. Both were about apparent conflicts between similar problems involving cards and dice.

How Many Paths from A to B?

A popular kind of question in combinatorics is to count the number of paths between two points in a grid (following simple constraints). This can be done by very different methods at different levels. We’ll look at several problems of this type, starting with the simplest.

Fibonacci, Pascal, and Induction

A couple weeks ago, while looking at word problems involving the Fibonacci sequence, we saw two answers to the same problem, one involving Fibonacci and the other using combinations that formed an interesting pattern in Pascal’s Triangle. I promised a proof of the relationship, and it’s time to do that. And while we’re there, since …

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Interpreting Probability Questions

(A new question of the week) A couple recent questions centered around how to interpret probability problems, whose wording can often be subtle, and whose solutions require care.

Rank of a Binary Number

(A new question of the week) A few months ago, I wrote about Ranking a Word Among Its Permutations, that is, finding where a word would be found in an ordered list of all possible “words” made by permuting its letters. The problem in general requires a (sometimes lengthy) algorithm. A month or so later, …

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