Solving a Distribution Problem with 52 Cards: 3 piles of 8, 4 piles of 7

  • Thread starter Thread starter beanryu
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Distribution
beanryu
Messages
90
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement


How many ways can a deck of 52 cards be broken up into a collection of unordered piles of sizes:

Three piles of 8 cards and four piles of 7 cards?

Homework Equations





The Attempt at a Solution



ohkay, the first step i used is to think of the different piles as labels and find all possible distribution of these labels among the 52 cards, that is equal to
(51!)/((7!)^4*(8!)^3)
but i don't know what to do next.

Thankyou for your help!
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
Try doing some smaller problems with fewer cards and fewer piles to see what you need to do.
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
Back
Top