MATHEMATICIAN

DATE

BAND

COMBINATORIAL REVALATIONS
PRECALCULUS | PACKER COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE

Section 1: A Combinatorial Identity

1. You have three copies of Lauren Groffs novel Arcadia to give to your friends.
(a) You think your friends Ally, Brendan, Chris and Daniel might enjoy the book. What are
your options of who to give the book to? List them out, each option in the bubble frame!
CROSS OUT ANY UNUSED FRAME.

Now write out the combinatorics expression for the number of different options: ________

(b) Oh shoot! You forgot about your friend Elmendorf! You have Ally, Brendan, Chris,
Daniel, and Elmendorf but only three books. Instead of starting the problem over, lets
use the work weve already done. In part (a) you listed all the sets of three people that
dont have Elmendorf. So you just need to list all the sets of three people that do have
Elmendorf! CROSS OUT ANY UNUSED FRAME.

Now write out the combinatorics expression for the number of different options for ways
to give books if Elmendorf is definitely getting a book: ________.

(c) Look at your work from part (a) and part (b). With your five friends, have you
captured all the possible ways to distribute your three copies of Arcadia to three of your
five friends? YES / NO
8

We have secretly conceptually understood an important identity:

5

C3 ______ _______

2. You have five copies of Tom Stoppards play Arcadia which is nothing like Lauren
Groffs novel Arcadia.

(a) You have six friends you think might enjoy it. How many ways can you give out your
copies of Arcadia?

(b) Dang! You think of a seventh friend who think might enjoy a copy of the book. Okay,
lets do the same thing we did in #1. In part (a), you already counted all the groups that
dont include the seventh friend in part (a). How many ways can you give out your five
copies of Arcadia if you definitely include your seventh friend as one of the recipients?

(c) What is the fancy combinatorial identity that we have just uncovered?

_______ ______ _______

3. GENERAL EYES:
(a) Conceptual: Explain conceptually why
n

Cr n Cr1 n1 Cr

. You can use the scenario of

giving copies of a book to friends. Explain what the first term on the left hand side
means. Explain what the second term on the left hand side means. Finally, explain why
those two terms summed together yields the term on the right hand side.

(b) Algebraic:
Below is an algebraic demonstration of why

C C C
10 3 10 4 11 4

Next to each line, explain what mathematical move was done!

10

C3 10 C4

10! 10!

7!3! 6!4!
4 10! 7 10!

4 7!3! 7 6!4!
4 10! 7 10!

7!4! 7!4!
4 10! 7 10!
7!4!
(4 7) 10!
7!4!
1110!
7!4!
11!
7!4!
C
11 4

(c) Reproduce the algebraic argument, but this time, show

20

C5 20 C6 21 C6

Section 2: Binomial Expansions

4. We saw how we could use Pascals Triangle to help us expand binomials raised to a
power.

(a) Quickly sketch Pascals Triangle, from row 0 to row 5.

(b) Use Pascals Triangle to expand

(c) Use Pascals Triangle to expand

(d) Use Pascals Triangle to expand

(e) Use Pascals Triangle to expand

(WV)4

(2x y)4

(x y)

(2x 5)
5

. (Hint: you might want to consider:

( 2x y )4

. (Hint: you might want to consider:

( x y )4

. (Hint: you might want to consider:

( 2x5 5 )3

(f) Use Pascals Triangle to expand

(10 1)

. I know you can do this without Pascal, but

you should do it with Pascal!

Section 3: The Secret Connection Between Pascals Triangle and Binomial

Expansions

5. You have 5 white tiles laid out in order from left to right. You decide to stamp each of
the tiles with either an X or Y. (At the end, none of the tiles will be blank!)

(a) How many different do you have if you want to stamp all of the tiles with an X? Draw
them and cross out any unused diagrams.

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

(b) How many different do you have if you want to stamp exactly 4 of the tiles with an X?
Draw them and cross out any unused diagrams.

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW
(c) How many different do you have if you want to stamp exactly 3 of the tiles with an X?
Draw them and cross out any unused diagrams.

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

(d) How many different do you have if you want to stamp exactly 2 of the tiles with an X?
Draw them and cross out any unused diagrams.

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW
8

(e) How many different do you have if you want to stamp exactly 1 of the tiles with an X?
Draw them and cross out any unused diagrams.

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

(f) How many different do you have if you want to stamp exactly none of the tiles with an
X? Draw them and cross out any unused diagrams.

WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW WWWWW

Check your answers to (a) to (f) by looking at this footnote. 1

6. We talked about a particular way to multiply polynomials in class.

Lets apply that here:

(x y)(x y)(x y)(x y)(x y)

Okay, Ill be kind Ill write out the tree diagram for you.

1 . You should be able to understand why these are the answers!

8

(a) Five paths are noted in the diagram (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Identify which term in the
expansion corresponds to those paths:
#1: _____________________

#3: _____________________

#2: _____________________

#4: _____________________

#5: _____________________

Hopefully you see that this is like the tile problem!

Now we know that a path that corresponds with

yxxxy

actually represents the term

(b) In the diagram, box in all paths which correspond to the term

xy

xy

. How many are

there? _______
Do you see how these paths are related to #5c?
(c) So lets say we had

(x y)9

. Thats a huge tree diagram. Imagine it! How many

branches will it have at the bottom?

How many of those

branches will
correspond with

How many of those

branches will
?

x9

correspond with

x8 y

How many of those

branches will
correspond with
7

x4 y5

xy

How many of those

branches will
correspond with

x3 y6

x6 y3

x5 y4

How many of those

branches will
correspond with

How many of those

branches will
correspond with

correspond with

How many of those

branches will
correspond with

How many of those

branches will

How many of those

branches will

How many of those

branches will

correspond with

correspond with
8

xy

x2 y7

?
9

Section 4: Another Connection Between Pascals Triangle and Binomial

Expansions

(x y)4
7. Below is a visualization of how we can figure out

by using this:

(x y) (x y)3 x1x3 3x2 y 3xy2 1y3 y1x3 3x2 y 3xy2 1y3

(x y)3
The first line is
. The second line shows that were going to multiply each term by
both x and y. The third line shows what results when we multiply each of those terms by
x and y. Fill those boxes in. One has been done for you. The last line has you combine
like terms. Do that!

(x y)6
8. Try this again! But figure out
that

, assuming that you have previously figured out

(x y)5 1x5 5x4 y 10x3 y2 10x2 y3 5xy4 1y5

9. Look at #7 and #8. Remember how we generated Pascals

Triangle (see right)?
Can you concretely see how that process is actually the same
process as this binomial expansion process?
If we know one row in Pascals Triangle, we can generate the next
row in Pascals Triangle in a way that exactly mimics what we did if we know a particular

(x y)3
binomial expansion (like

) and we wanted to generate the next binomial expansion

(x y)4
(like

).