There are 10 people on a basketball team, and the coach needs to choose 5 to put into a game. How many different possible ways can the coach choose a team of 5 if each person has an equal chance of being selected?Answer:
Q. There are 10 people on a basketball team, and the coach needs to choose 5 to put into a game. How many different possible ways can the coach choose a team of 5 if each person has an equal chance of being selected?Answer:
Calculate Combinations Formula: To solve this problem, we need to calculate the number of combinations of 10 people taken 5 at a time. The formula for combinations is given by:C(n,k)=k!⋅(n−k)!n!where n is the total number of items, k is the number of items to choose, and ! denotes factorial.In this case, n=10 and k=5.
Calculate Factorial of n: First, we calculate the factorial of n, which is 10!.10!=10×9×8×7×6×5×4×3×2×1
Calculate Factorial of k: Next, we calculate the factorial of k, which is 5!.5!=5×4×3×2×1
Calculate Factorial of n−k: We also need to calculate the factorial of n−k, which is 10−5=5, so we need 5! again.Since we've already calculated 5!, we can use the same value.
Plug Values into Formula: Now we can plug these values into the combinations formula:C(10,5)=5!×(10−5)!10!C(10,5)=5!×5!10!
Substitute Factorial Values: Substitute the factorial values we've calculated into the formula:C(10,5)=(5×4×3×2×1)×(5×4×3×2×1)10×9×8×7×6×5×4×3×2×1
Simplify Expression: We can simplify the expression by canceling out the common factors in the numerator and the denominator:C(10,5)=5×4×3×2×110×9×8×7×6
Further Simplification: Further simplification gives us:C(10,5)=510×19×48×17×26C(10,5)=2×9×2×7×3
Multiply to Get Result: Multiplying these together, we get:C(10,5)=2×9×2×7×3C(10,5)=18×14×3C(10,5)=252×3C(10,5)=756