Solution for Section 6.4 Question 6

6. Recall that if you have a collection consists of n objects of which:
      n1 are of type 1 and are indistinguishable from each other;
      n2  are of type 2 and are indistinguishable from each other;
            :
            :
      nk are of type k and are indistinguishable from each other;
and  n1 + n2 +  ... + nk = n. Then the number of distinct permutations of the n objects is  n! / (n1! n2! ... nk!).

In the word abracadabra, there are 5 a's, 2 b's, 1 c, 1 d and 2 r's. So there are 11! / (5! 2! 1! 1! 2!) = 83160 distinct permutations of the letters.

Back to Section 6.4