You have a CD with 16 cuts on it, and another with 13 cuts by a different artist. You wish to make a compilation from all these songs containing just 3 different cuts which you will play for your friends. How many possible ways can you arrange 3 cuts copied from these two CDs? (Count two compilations as different if they have the same three songs in a different order.)

Question

kinggeorge · Answer

Since it doesn't matter if you use both CD's or not, the first step is to find the total number of cuts you can work with. So we have $$16+13=29 \quad \text{possible cuts.}$$Now we know that order does matter, we're working with permutations of 3 cuts from a set of 29. Thus, there are $$29P3={29\cdot28\cdot27}$$ways.

anonymous · Answer

So i multiply those three numbers to get my answer??

kinggeorge · Answer

Correct.