Working out number combinations?

Energize

Energize

Energize

Caporegime
Joined
12 Mar 2004
Posts
29,958
Location
England
I've completley forgotten how to do it. If you have a set of numbers with a certain range how do you work out how many combinations there are?
 
Ummm, like for instance, you have a padlock with a 3 digit code?

imagine all the numbers as 9, then add 1 ?

eg, in my padlock idea the highest you could go would be 999 - then add 1 because 000 could be considered a combination?

*disclaimer*
I didn't listen in GCSE maths, and if there is some mathmatical formula that your after, ignore this post :)
 
My brain shuts down when trying to do combination work :/

I say a 3-roller 0-9 combination lock has 1,000 combinations:

000
001
002
003
004
...
097
098
099
100
101
...
996
997
998
999

Non?

*n
 
Surely it's a simple case of, four digits, 0-9 therefore possible combo is 10x10x10x10 therefore 10'000 combinations?

edit - penski is on my wavelength, but with a 3 digit example.
 
Mikol said:
Surely it's a simple case of, four digits, 0-9 therefore possible combo is 10x10x10x10 therefore 10'000 combinations?
Click to expand...


indeed, all about powers....
 
Well, that's different, because with the lottery, when one number has been chosen, it is then out of the equation. Say with a padlock for example, each number always exists.

ie. can be 0-9 x 0-9 x 0-9 x 0-9 combination.

With the lottery, there are, for the first ball, 49 possibilites, the second on 48, the third only 47 and so on.
 
oh yea good point :)

In which case i believe your theory of Powers is correct - i shoulda read the post correctly

Its the same with PIN's 10,000 combinations :)
 
Energize said:
I didn't think it was as simple as powers otherwise the chance in winning the lottery would be 13,841,287,201:1
Click to expand...

That's beacuse the same number can only be picked twice. If there were 49 balls for each number drawn, then the odds of getting all 6 balls would be 49^6.

The initial post is ambigious....
 
Energize said:
I didn't think it was as simple as powers otherwise the chance in winning the lottery would be 13,841,287,201:1
Click to expand...
Are you talking combinations as defined in mathematics (essentially how many ways can I choose k items out of n?) or are you talking combinations as in, say, a combination lock (how many k digit combinations are there where each digit has n possible values?). They are distinct questions with very different answers.
 
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