Try This Logical Question: Find the Rank of "Ought" & "Tough" in a Dictionary

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The discussion revolves around determining the ranks of the words "ought" and "tough" when the letters of "ought" are rearranged and listed alphabetically. The alphabetical order of the letters is established as G, H, O, T, U. For "ought," it is calculated that there are 2*4! entries before it due to the letters G and H coming first, followed by 3*3! for the letters G, H, and T before the letter U. This leads to a rank of 67 for "ought." For "tough," a similar calculation is performed, resulting in a rank of 89. The conversation highlights the method of calculating these ranks based on permutations of the letters rather than focusing on meaningful words.
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Try out this problem

The letters of the word ought are rearranged to form new words irrespective of the meanings. The words were later compiled in a dictionary where they were arranged alphabetically. Find the rank of the word ought in the dictionary. Hence also find the rank of the word tough in it.
 
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I think it is this, in white (select to view)
ought --> 66, tough --> 88 [/color]
 
gerben, I think you want to add 1 to both those numbers...
 
Gokul43201, yes I do
 
explain

can someone explain this question to me? i know it has been solved but i'd like to know how the answer was came about.

thanks
 
There's a partial hint here.
 
Gokul43201 said:
There's a partial hint here.
Still don't get it.

The Bob (2004 ©)
 
Alphabetical order: g,h,o,t,u.
"o" comes is the third in the list, so there are 2*4! entries before it.
 
shouldn't the words be actual words? it's to easy to rearrange the letters into nonsense. you could say rearrange the numbers in 12345 into every possible combination then tell me where 12354 is in your list.
 
  • #10
If I can help,
The alphabetical order of the letters is G,H,O,T,U
In the firt place,Words with O as the first letter will start after 2*4! words, 4! for G and H.
In the second place, U will start after 3*3! words,3! each for G,H,T
After this Alphabetically the next word will be ought.
So the rank of ought will be 2*4! + 3*3! + 1 = 67
Simillarly For tough.
 
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