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If I have $10$ large chairs and $5$ small chairs to be arranged at a round table, how many different ways are there to arrange them?

There are $15!$ possible arrangements; however, since the $10$ large chairs are identical and the $5$ small chairs are identical, $15!$ must be divided by both $10!$ and $5!$. This equals to $3003$. Additionally, since the table is round, I must divide by $15$. However, dividing by $15$ results in an answer of $200.2$ which makes no sense.

Am I incorrect in dividing by $15$? If so, why is my final answer a decimal?

Rich B
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1 Answers1

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If we had fifteen distinct objects, we could arrange them in a row in $15!$ ways. In a circular permutation, only the relative order of the objects matters. There are two ways to handle this:

  • Pick one of the objects as a reference point. Relative to this object, the other $14$ objects can be arranged in $14!$ ways as we proceed clockwise around the circle.
  • Break a circular arrangement between two objects. Now place the objects in a line as we proceed clockwise around the circle from the point where we made the break. There are $15$ ways we could do this, one to the left of each object. Hence, there are $15$ linear arrangements corresponding to each circular arrangement. Since there are $15!$ linear arrangements of $15$ objects, there are $$\frac{15!}{15} = \frac{15 \cdot 14!}{15} = 14!$$ circular permutations of $15$ distinct objects.

In general, there are $(n - 1)!$ circular permutations of $n$ distinct objects.

In this case, we have ten indistinguishable large chairs and five indistinguishable small chairs to arrange in a circle. As you observed, there are $$\binom{15}{5}$$ ways to arrange the objects in a line. If we divide by $15$ to obtain the number of circular arrangements, we do not get an integer because as @lulu pointed out in the comments, the circular arrangement in which there are exactly two large chairs between each pair of small chairs has just three corresponding linear arrangements: $$LLSLLSLLSLLSLLS$$ $$LSLLSLLSLLSLLSL$$ $$SLLSLLSLLSLLSLL$$ Therefore, when we divide by $15$, we count this particular arrangement $3/15 = 1/5$ times. We want to count it once, so we must add $4/5$ to your answer. Hence, the number of distinct circular arrangements of $10$ indistinguishable large chairs and $5$ indistinguishable small chairs is $$\frac{1}{15}\binom{15}{5} + \frac{4}{5} = 201$$

N. F. Taussig
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