Sarah, Victor, Janel, and Kirby checked their coats at the door of the Colonnade Room Restaurant. The coat checker is in quite a hurry when he returns with their coats. How many different ways can their coats be returned so that no one recieves the right coat.? (please show your work.)

Question

anonymous · Answer

disjunctions or something, i forget
there is a formula for it, but in this case it is easier just to count 
say the correct order is 
SVJK

then count the ways for no letter to be in the same order 
 
VSLK
VKSL
VKLS

etc

anonymous · Answer

de arrangements, that is it!

anonymous · Answer

thanks

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

you mean derangement http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Derangement.html

jim_thompson5910 · Answer

this page probably has an easier formula to work with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derangement

anonymous · Answer

yeah, something like that 
really in this case it might be easiest to list all 24 and then point to the (cough 9) that fit the bill

anonymous · Answer

could someone list all the possibilities?