A class has 3 blonde students, 5 brown haired students, and 6 black haired students. How many ways can you arrange all the students?

Question

phi · Answer

14! ways of arranging 14 people.  people with the same colored hair are still different people... so I don't know how the number of blondes vs brown vs black matter.

rock_mit182 · Answer

isn't this a combination ?

turingtest · Answer

The wording in the problem is extremely poor, as phi indicated. Are we to take each person as a unique individual, or do we assume hair color is the only factor we are counting? Also, are they asking how many different groups of any size can be formed, or do we have to use all the people each time, or...?

anonymous · Answer

Your question are quite valid - and the questions I too asked when I tried to solve this problem. The wording is very ambiguous. He said we should be able to figure it out.

anonymous · Answer

Since it is 14 different people, maybe it should just be 14! ?

turingtest · Answer

that seems to be the only logical answer to me, as well.

anonymous · Answer

Thank you all for your help. I appreciate it.

parthkohli · Answer

Poorly worded, as others pointed out.  I believe the answer is not 14!, but we count people of hair colour as the same.

parthkohli · Answer

So divide by 3! * 5! * 6!

anonymous · Answer

Getting hole in memory but agreeing it what we call arrangement in french so 14!

anonymous · Answer

I had also considered that option as well. I'm wondering if maybe you are correct on this, since he did list that some of the students have the same hair color.