Combinatorics

Pascal’s Triangle and Pascal’s Identity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwo2ua3H1pE Pascal’s triangle is a famous structure in combinatorics and mathematics as a whole. It can be interpreted as counting the number of paths on a grid, which is intimately linked with binomial coeffcients, otherwise known as combinations. This leads to a relationship between binomial coefficients, called Pascal’s identity, via a technique called double counting.

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Multinomial Coefficients

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aacb7OVb44 One interpretation of multinomial coefficients is that we have a collection of subcollections of items, where items within the same subcollection are indistinguishable but items in different subcollections are distinguishable. The goal is to find the number of ways of permuting the overarching collection. We derive this formula using the formula for combinations and

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Counting Permutations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxKnHqFIvvE Given a finite set of $n$ elements, in how many ways can we form an ordered $k$-tuple of distinct elements from that set? This question and its answer gives rise to the concept of permutations. We solve the problem using the strong multiplication principle, otherwise known as the product rule, in this video.

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Casework and Complementary Counting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUYPgm8JFMs Casework or combinatorial addition allows us to split a set into disjoint pieces or bring together disjoint pieces into a larger set. Combinatorial subtraction or complementary counting, tells us that we can find the cardinality of a larger set and subtract the excess. Both are indispensable techniques, especially when combined with more sophisticated methods

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