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The number associated in the combinatorial number system of degree k to a k-combination C is the number of k-combinations strictly less than C in the given ordering. This number can be computed from C = {c k, ..., c 2, c 1} with c k > ... > c 2 > c 1 as follows.
In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations).For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are three combinations of two that can be drawn from this set: an apple and a pear; an apple and an orange; or a pear and an orange.
Alternative notations include C(n, k), n C k, n C k, C k n, [3] C n k, and C n,k, in all of which the C stands for combinations or choices; the C notation means the number of ways to choose k out of n objects. Many calculators use variants of the C notation because they can represent it on a single-line display.
The same argument shows that the number of compositions of n into exactly k parts (a k-composition) is given by the binomial coefficient (). Note that by summing over all possible numbers of parts we recover 2 n−1 as the total number of compositions of n:
One must divide the number of combinations producing the given result by the total number of possible combinations (for example, () =,,).The numerator equates to the number of ways to select the winning numbers multiplied by the number of ways to select the losing numbers.
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures.It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many applications ranging from logic to statistical physics and from evolutionary biology to computer science.
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A k-combination of a set S is a k-element subset of S: the elements of a combination are not ordered. Ordering the k-combinations of S in all possible ways produces the k-permutations of S. The number of k-combinations of an n-set, C(n,k), is therefore related to the number of k-permutations of n by: (,) = (,) (,) = _! =!