A blood bank needs 12 people to help with a blood drive. 18 people have volunteered. Find how many different groups of 12 can be formed from the 18 volunteers.Answer:
Q. A blood bank needs 12 people to help with a blood drive. 18 people have volunteered. Find how many different groups of 12 can be formed from the 18 volunteers.Answer:
Identify Problem Type: Identify the type of problem.We need to find the number of combinations of 18 people taken 12 at a time. This is a combinatorics problem involving combinations without repetition.
Use Combination Formula: Use the combination formula.The number of ways to choose k people from a group of n people is given by the combination formula:C(n,k)=k!(n−k)!n!where n! denotes the factorial of n, which is the product of all positive integers up to n.
Apply Formula: Apply the formula to our problem.We have n=18 volunteers and we want to choose k=12 people. So we need to calculate:C(18,12)=12!(18−12)!18!
Simplify Expression: Simplify the expression.C(18,12)=(12!⋅6!)18!We can cancel out the common factorial terms by expanding the factorials partially:18!=18⋅17⋅16⋅15⋅14⋅13⋅12!Now we can cancel the 12! on the numerator and denominator.C(18,12)=6!(18⋅17⋅16⋅15⋅14⋅13)
Calculate Result: Calculate the result.6!=6×5×4×3×2×1=720Now we divide the product of the numbers in the numerator by 720:C(18,12)=72018×17×16×15×14×13
Perform Division: Perform the division.C(18,12)=72018×17×16×15×14×13C(18,12)=618×117×416×515×214×113C(18,12)=3×17×4×3×7×13C(18,12)=3×3×4×7×13×17C(18,12)=9×4×7×13×17C(18,12)=36×7×13×17C(18,12)=252×13×17C(18,12)=3276×17C(18,12)=55692