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math challenge II-A combinatoratics 7.29

 
 
Picture of Zeyin Wu
math challenge II-A combinatoratics 7.29
by Zeyin Wu - Friday, 1 October 2021, 4:40 AM
 

This explanation is vague. I cannot understand. Could you please clarify it? Thx

 
Picture of John Lensmire
Re: math challenge II-A combinatoratics 7.29
by John Lensmire - Friday, 1 October 2021, 12:16 PM
 

Part (a) is referencing that you've already seen this problem in the Inclusion-Exclusion chapter. Looking at Example 4.9 and Practice Problem 4.29 we get the general equation that is listed in 7.29. This is a good time to review that the equation given makes sense (using summation notation here) and that you can explain it using PIE.

For (b), the recursive formula is talked about in 7.9. As part of this problem we just want to verify numerically that both equations give the same answer for 8 people.