Discrete math - confusion in onto functions. At the CH Company, Joan, has a secretary Teresa, and three other administrative assistants. If seven accounts must be processed, in how many ways can Joan assign the accounts so that each assistant works on at least one account and Teresa's work includes the most expensive account?

moidu13x8

moidu13x8

Answered question

2022-09-05

Discrete math - confusion in onto functions
At the CH Company, Joan, has a secretary Teresa, and three other administrative assistants. If seven accounts must be processed, in how many ways can Joan assign the accounts so that each assistant works on at least one account and Teresa's work includes the most expensive account?

Answer & Explanation

detegerex

detegerex

Beginner2022-09-06Added 16 answers

Step 1
The answer in the book seems to be S 2 ( 6 , 3 ) × 3 ! + S 2 ( 6 , 4 ) × 4 ! = 90 × 6 + 65 × 24
Step 2
I might do it another way and say that you have to distribute 7 accounts onto 4 people, though only a quarter of these give Teresa the most expensive account, so
1 4 × S 2 ( 7 , 4 ) × 4 ! = 1 4 × 350 × 24, which gives the same answer.
alinearjb

alinearjb

Beginner2022-09-07Added 10 answers

Step 1
Case 1: Teresa works only on the most expensive account.
Joan must distribute six accounts to the other three administrative assistants. If there were no restrictions, Joan could assign each of the six accounts to one of three people. There are 3 6 ways to do this since there are three choices for each of the six accounts. However, we must exclude those assignments in which an administrative assistant is not assigned at least one account. There are ( 3 1 ) ways of selecting one assistant to not receive any accounts and 2 6 ways of assigning the six accounts to the other two assistants. There are ( 3 2 ) ways of selecting two assistants to not receive any accounts and 1 6 ways of assigning the six accounts to the remaining assistant. By the Inclusion-Exclusion Principle, there are
3 6 ( 3 1 ) 2 6 + ( 3 2 ) 1 6
ways to assign the other six accounts if Teresa only works on the most expensive account.
Step 2
Case 2: Teresa works on at least one other account in addition to the most expensive one.
If there were no restrictions, Joan could assign each of the six other accounts to one of four people. Since there are four choices for each of the six accounts, she could do this in 46 ways. From these assignments, we must exclude those in which one of the administrative assistants is not assigned at least one account. By a similar argument to that given above, the number of ways the six remaining accounts can be assigned to the four assistants so that each person receives at least one is
4 6 ( 4 1 ) 3 6 + ( 4 2 ) 2 6 ( 4 3 ) 1 6
Since these cases are mutually exclusive, the number of possible ways Joan can assign the accounts so that Teresa handles the most expensive account and each administrative assistant handles at least one account is
3 6 ( 3 1 ) 2 6 + ( 3 2 ) 1 6 + 4 6 ( 4 1 ) 3 6 + ( 4 2 ) 2 6 ( 4 3 ) 1 6

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