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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Hobo, post: 395967, member: 11521&quot;]If I recall correctly factorials are used a lot in probability and statistics to calculate the total number of combinations that can be made from a given set of items. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For example, suppose you wanted to calculate the total number of combinations of Red, Green and Blue. This one is fairly easy to do by hand:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Red&nbsp; Green&nbsp; Blue</p><p>Red&nbsp; Blue&nbsp; Green</p><p>Green&nbsp; Red&nbsp; Blue</p><p>Green&nbsp; Blue&nbsp; Red</p><p>Blue&nbsp; Red&nbsp; Green</p><p>Blue&nbsp; Green&nbsp; Red</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The total number of combinations can simply be counted - 6. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>But what happens when you have a large number of items? Things get complicated fast. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In the above example the formula can be written T = n! where:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>T = total number of combinations</p><p>n = the integer representing the number of colors (or items) </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>n! = 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 . . . X n (obviously ignoring &quot;X 3&quot; and &quot;X 4&quot; as needed)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>So 3! = 1 X 2 X 3 = 6</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>If we added one more color to the above set (for a total of 4) the total number of combinations would be:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>4! = 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 = 24 </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>This concludes your math lesson for today.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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