Great question.jsnipes wrote:i got the right answer but i think i may have done it wrong. so total number of ways that the 6 people can be arranged (since order matters?) is 6! or 720. i then took 720 and divided it by the number of people who have to stand together as 2! not two. so i got 6!/2! which for 2 is obviously the same thing and results in the correct answer of 360. if there were three people would I divide 720 by 3 or 3!
thanks for help, i know this is two day old question i just got around to answering it though.
If there were three people to consider (A, B and C) and we wanted to know how many 6-person configurations are such that A is ahead of B, and B is ahead of C, then we'd divide 720 by 3!
We'd divide by 3! since there are 3! (6) ways to arrange A, B and C and only one of those 6 arrangements would be such that A is ahead of B, and B is ahead of C.
Cheers,
Brent