rsrighosh
KarishmaBCan you please help in this question?
I thought that because 2 different people are selecting the answer should be 10C3 * 7C2. But instead answer is 10C5. Why is that?
There are 10 cities and you have to make a package of 5. In how many ways can you choose 5 cities out of 10? In 10C5.
So say cities are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J
One package would be A, B, C, D, H
Another would be C, D, F, H, A
etc...
Is there any distinction between the cities? No. We are told we don't need to worry about the arrangement.
Say you and me have to select 5 cities together. You select 3 and I pick another 2. We have 5 selections. Does it change if you pick 1 and I pick 4? No. The selection is still the same - same number picked from the same list. We get the same selections.
Think what 10C3 * 7C2 is: If I have a group of 10 cities and I pick 3 out of them, I get 10C3. If I have another 7 cities and I pick 2 of them I get 7C2.
Then I get 10C3*7C2 as my selection of 5 cities out of 17 cities from two different groups - Group 1 of 10 cities and group 2 of 7 cities such that I pick 3 from group 1 and 2 from group 2.
Or if I want to visit 3 cities this year and 2 cities next year (without repeating) from the list of 10 cities, I can select 1 group of 3 cities in 10C3 ways for this year and another group of 2 cities for next year in 7C2 ways. That will give me possible 10C3 * 7C2 of visiting 5 cities.
Here {(A, B, C), (D, E)} is different from {(A, B, D), (C, E)} but in our original question, both are one selection only.
rsrighosh