< 1 2 >
Variation
Variations of m elements extracted from n of n
Example 1
We take the 4 letters ABCD and start playing with them. If you take all 4 letters there are 24 variations
ABCD ABDC ACBD ACDB ADCB ADBC
BACD BCAD BADC BDAC BCDA BDCA
CABD CBAD CADB CDAB CBDA CDBA
DABC DACB DBAC DBCA DCAB DCBA
and calculate this as
With 3 letters there are also 24 variations
ABC ABD ACB ACD ADC ADB
BAC BCA BAD BDA BCD BDC
CAB CBA CAD CDA CBD CDB
DAB DAC DBA DBC DCA DCB
and calculate this as
With 2 letters there are 12 variations
AB AC AD
BA BC BD
CA CB CD
DA DB DC
and calculate this as
If we take only 1 letter there are 4 variations
A
B
C
D
and calculate this as
For the sake of completeness, we look at what happens if we do not take a single letter. That is by definition also 1 variation
