Counting/Math Problem

Off Topic
1

What I wanna do is write down every possibility of something, like how much combination there can be on a lock. What I usually do is (let’s say there is 3 ‘‘case’’ and 3 possible number)

111
112
113
121
122
123

You change the last number and when all 3 have been wrote you change the number before
etc… it equals 3^3 possibity I think but that’s not very important for what I want to do.

To make it short what I wanna do is this but the number are related between themselves and a line can last anywhere from 4 case to much more, there can also be loops. So I have to start from the first number. How do I proceed?

Sorry if it seems obvious to you I have been doing dumb labor work all summer

Maybe Jdinatale can chime in

2

If you mean a problem like:
Tim has 3 shirts and 4 pairs of shorts, how many different combinations of clothing can tim make?

It’s the first number times the second. (12)

If you mean something like
There are 3 numbers all between 1 and 10, how many possible combinations are there, the answer is the first to the power of the possibilities…I think. So 3^10? I might be wrong here. I dunno. A summer of excel documents hasn’t exactly enhanced my thinking skills either.

3

What do you mean loops? Blaze was correct in that a string of n numbers where each digit has m possibilities is n^m. This type of stuff is elementary combinatorics, so you could try googling simple counting/combinatorics concepts (such as N choose R notation, factorial, you may also be interested in some simple graph theory).

4

Elementary combinatorics, jasmin, you big doofis.

5

[quote]jasmincar wrote:
What I wanna do is write down every possibility of something, like how much combination there can be on a lock. What I usually do is (let’s say there is 3 ‘‘case’’ and 3 possible number)

111
112
113
121
122
123

You change the last number and when all 3 have been wrote you change the number before
etc… it equals 3^3 possibity I think but that’s not very important for what I want to do.

To make it short what I wanna do is this but the number are related between themselves and a line can last anywhere from 4 case to much more, there can also be loops. So I have to start from the first number. How do I proceed?

Sorry if it seems obvious to you I have been doing dumb labor work all summer

Maybe Jdinatale can chime in[/quote]

This is a permutation with repetitions so the number you are looking for is the number of lock numbers over the number of possibilites for each separate wheel, in this case 10^3= 1000.

6

Jasmincar: I don’t understand that last paragraph, but in the first example, it’s not 3^3, it’s 3! (That is 123=6)

7

The real problem is

I have 7 possible numbers (from one to seven). In reality 8 is 1, 9 is 2, 10 is 3, 0 is 7, -1 is 6… etc so you never end up with anything else than 1 to 7.

Let’s say I substract 4 to 2 that would equals 6 ( 2…1…7…6). If I add 1 to 7 it would be 1, and so on

I can substract 4 or 2 and add 1 how much time I want. The line starts on 1 and finish when I return on 1.

let’s say we start by substracting 4 (like we would start with 111 with a lock)
so the first line would be

1 4 7 2 5 1 (-4,-4,-4,-4,-4) no problem, then I would use -2 instead of the last -4 and go on with -4
1 4 7 2 5 2 5 1 (-4,-4,-4,-4,-3,-4,-4) then I change the last -4 for -2 and complete with -4
1 4 7 2 5 2 5 3 7 2 5 1 (-4,-4,-4,-4,-3,-4,-3,-4) there is a loop in that. I don’t know what to do next

The important thing I think is the ‘‘operation’’ line, but the number line determine when the operation line ends. My goals was to write down every possibility on a piece of paper, with some sort of notation (maybe A,B,C) to indicate that there is a loop but now that I see that it can be long maybe I could use a program of some sort.
there is also some other rules ( you can’t go from 5 to 3 is one of them) that would make some line unusable but I won’t take this in consideration for the moment.

I am working on this at the moment

8

Are you talking a series like E(x^n)+y for any number x,n, with conditions on Y within the set of [P to Q] ?

Cause if you are, then I don’t know what you are talking about.
(sorry about the cruddy set builder notation jumble. it’s been a while)

9

well I don’t know about those series, I am gonna check that out

10

it’s too complicated, I give up