CS202

Discrete Structures
Counting
The Basics of counting
Combinatorics is the mathematics of counting
and arranging objects.

Counting of objects with certain properties

(enumeration) is required to solve many
different types of problems. For example,
counting is used to:

 Determine number of ordered or unordered

arrangement of objects.
 Generate all the arrangements of a specified
kind
which is important in computer simulations.
 Compute probabilities of events.
 Analyze the chance of winning games, lotteries
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The Basics of counting
Two basic counting principles
 The Sum Rule
 The Product Rule

 Let us consider two tasks:

m is the number of ways to do task1
n is the number of ways to do task2
Performing task1 does not accomplish task2 and
vice versa (task1 and task2 are independent of
each other).

• Sum rule: the number of ways that “either

task1 or task2 can be done, but not both”, is
m+n.
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• Product rule: the number of ways that “both
The Basics of counting
(Examples)
Example: A student can choose a computer
project from one of three lists. The three lists
contain 23, 15, and 19 possible projects
respectively. How many possible projects are
there to choose from? (23+15+19=57)

Example: The chairs of an auditorium are to be

labeled with a letter and a positive integer not
to exceed 100. What is the largest number of
chairs that can be labeled differently?
(26x100=2600)

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The Basics of counting
(Examples)

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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
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The Basics of counting
(Examples)

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The Basics of counting (Set
version)
If A is the set of ways to do task1, and B the set
of ways to do task2, and if A and B are disjoint,
then:
 The ways to do either task1 or task2 are
AB, and |AB|=|A|+|B|
 The ways to do both task1 and task2 are
AB, and |AB|=|A|·|B|

The number of different subsets of a finite set(s)

is ?
000000000000
100000000000
010000000000 2|s| 21
The Basics of counting (Examples)
What is the value of k after the following code
has been executed?

K:=0 K:=0
for i1:=1 to n1 for i1:=1 to n1
K:= K +1 for i2:=1 to n2
for i2=1 to n2 for i3:=1 to n3
K:= K +1 K:= K +1
for i3=1 to n3
K:= K +1

K= n1+ n2+ n3 K= n1x n2x n3

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The Basics of counting (Examples)

Count the number of print statements in this

algorithm:
for i := 1 to n
begin
for j := 1 to n
print “hello”
for k := 1 to n
print “hello”
end

The total number of print statements executed

is
n · (n+n) = 2n2. 23
The Basics of counting (Examples)
Count the number of print statements in this
algorithm:
for i := 1 to n
begin
for j := 1 to i
print “hello”
for k := i + 1 to n
print “hello”
end

for each i, the number of print statements

executed is i in the j loop plus n−i in the k loop.
Therefore, for each i, the number of print
statements is i + (n−i) = n.
Therefore the total number of print statements 24
The Basics of counting (Examples)
In a computer language
 The name of a variable is a string of one or two
alphanumeric characters.
 uppercase and lowercase letters are not
distinguished.
 26 English letter , 10 digits.
 the variable name must begin with letter.
 there are five strings of two characters that
are reserved for programming use.
How many different variable names are there ?

V1 string (one character) ,V2 string (two

characters)
V=V1+V2
V1=26 25
The Basics of counting (Examples)
How many different license plates are available
if each plate contains a sequence of three
letters followed by three digits?
L1 L2 L3 D1 D2 D3
Each of the three letters can be written in 26
different ways, and each of the three digits can
be written in 10 different ways.

Hence, by the product rule, there is a total of

26  26  26  10  10  10 = 17,576,000
different license plates possible.
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The Basics of counting (Examples)
Each user on a computer system has a
password, which is six to eight characters long,
where each character is an uppercase letter or
digit. Each password must contain at least one
digit. How many passwords are there?
(string includes Letters & Digits)- (string with
no digits)

P=P6+P7+P8
P6=366-266=1 867 866 560
P7=367-267=70 332 353 920
P8=368-268=2 612 282 842 880
P=P6+P7+P8=2 684 483 063 360
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The Basics of counting (Examples)
In version 4 of the Internet Protocol (IPv4)
The internet address is a string of 32 bits as
follows:
Class A address [ 0 -netid(7 bits) – hostid (24
bits)]
Class B address [ 10 -netid(14 bits) – hostid (16
bits)]
Class C address [ 110 -netid(21 bits) – hostid (8
bits)]
Class D address [ 1110 –multicast address (28
bits)]
Class E address [ 11110 - address (27 bits)]
Where, Network number(netid) -host
number(hostid)
Restrictions 28
 1111111 is unavailable in netid
The Basics of counting (Examples)
How many bit string of length eight either start
with a 1 bit or end with the two bits 00?

1 - - - - - - - 27=128 ways

- - - - - - 0 0 26=64 ways

1 - - - - - 0 0 25=32 ways

128 + 64- 32= 160

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The Basics of counting (Examples)
A computer company receives 350 applications
from computer graduates for a job.
Suppose that 220 of these people majored in
CS, 147 majored in business, and 51 majored
both in CS and in business. How many of these
applicants majored neither in CS nor in
business?

Let A1 be the set of students who majored in CS

Let A2 be the set of students who majored in
business

The number of students who majored either in

CS or in business (or both) is
|A1A2|=|A1|+|A2|-|A1A2|=220+147-51=316 30
The Basics of counting (Examples)
Exercises
PP. 344-347
1-12

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The Pigeonhole principle
The Pigeonhole principle
Suppose there are n pigeons, k pigeonholes,
and n>k.
If these n pigeons fly into these k pigeonholes,
then some pigeonhole must contain at least two
pigeons.

If k+1 objects are assigned to k places, then at

least 1 place must be assigned ≥2 objects.
7 pigeons
6 pigeonholes

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The Pigeonhole principle
 In terms of the assignment function:
If f:A→B and |A|≥|B|+1, then some element of
B
has ≥2 pre-images under f.( f is not one-to-
one)

 How many students must be in class to

guarantee that at least two students receive
the same score on the final exam, if the exam is
graded on a scale from 0 to 100 points? Greater
than 101

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The Pigeonhole principle (Examples)
The generalized Pigeonhole principle
If N objects are placed into k boxes, then
there is at least one box containing at least N/K
objects.

 e.g., there are N=280 students in this class.

There are k=52 weeks in the year.
Therefore, there must be at least 1 week during
which at least 280/52= 5.38=6 students in
the class have a birthday.

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The Pigeonhole principle (Examples)
 There are 280 students in the class. Without
knowing anybody’s birthday, what is the
largest value of n for which we can prove that
at least n students must have been born in the
same month?
280/12 = 23.3 = 24
 What is the minimum number of students
required in a discrete math class to be sure that
at least six will receive the same grade, if there
are five possible grades, A, B, C, D, and F?

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Permutations and
Combinations
Permutations
A. In how many ways can we select 3 students
from a group of 5 students to stand in line
for a picture?
B. In how many ways can we arrange all 5 of
these students in a line for a picture?
Note that the order in which we select the
students matters.
5 ways to select the first student
4 ways to select the second student
3 ways to select the third student
2 ways to select the fourth student
1 way to select the fifth student
A. 5.4.3=60 36
Permutations and
Combinations
Permutations
 A permutation of a set S of objects is an
ordered arrangement of the elements of S
where each element appears only once:
e.g., 1 2 3, 2 1 3, 3 1 2

 An ordered arrangement of r distinct

elements of S is called an r-permutation.

 The number of r-permutations of a set S

with n=|S| elements is

P(n,r) = n(n−1)(n−2) …(n−r+1) =

n!/(n−r)! 37
Permutations and
Combinations
Permutations (examples)
 How many ways are there to select a first-
prize winner, a second-prize winner,and a
third-prize winner from 100 different people
who have entered a contest?
P(100,3)=100.99.98=970200

• How many permutations of the letters

ABCDEFGH contain the string ABC ?

ABC, D, E, F, G, H we have 6 objects

Theses object can occur in any order
6.5.4.3.2.1
There are 6!=720 permutations 38
Permutations and
Combinations
Combinations
 The number of ways of choosing r elements
from S (order does not matter).
S={1,2,3}
e.g., 1 2 , 1 3, 2

 The number of r-combinations C(n,r) of a

set with n=|S| elements is

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Permutations and
Combinations
Example
S={1,2,3},
all permutations={(1,2,3),(2,1,3),(1,3,2),
(2,3,1),(3,1,2),(3,2,1)}
all 2-permutations={(1,2),(2,1),(1,3),(3,1),
(2,3),(3,2)}
P(3,3)=3*2*1=6, P(3,2)=3*2=6

S={1,2,3}, all 2-combinations={{1,2},{1,3},

{2,3}}
Comparing to all 2-permutations, we see we
ignore order,

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Permutations and
Combinations
Example
How many ways are there to choose a
committee of size five consisting of three
women and two men from a group of ten
women and seven men?
 The number of ways to choose three women
is C(10, 3)
 The number of ways to choose two men is
C(7, 2).
 Using the product rule to choose three
women and two men, the answer is
 C(10, 3) · C(7, 2) = 2, 520.

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Permutations and
Combinations
Example
A class has 20 women and 16 men. In how many ways
can you
(a) Put all the students in a row?
(b) Put 7 of the students in a row?
(c) Put all the students in a row if all the women are on
the left and all the men are on the right?
Solution:
(a) There are 36 students. They can be put in a row in
36! ways.
(b) You need to have an ordered arrangement of 7 out
of 36 students. The number of such arrangements
is P(36, 7).
(c) You need to have an ordered arrangement of all 20
women AND and ordered arrangement of all 16 men.
By the product rule, this can be done in 20!·16! ways.
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Permutations and
Combinations
Exercises
PP. 360-362
1
4
5
7

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