Using the street map shown below, you are directed to
take a 4-block-long route to walk from First and Main
Streets to Third and Market Streets. If each of the
different 4-block-long routes consists of a unique
sequence of streets, how many such routes could you
take?
List out all of the options:
Right, Right, Down, Down
Right, Down, Right, Down
Right, Down, Down, Right
Down, Right, Down, Right
Down, Down, Right, Right
Down, Right, Right, Down
This is a permutation problem, where ordering does matter. We can think of having 4 total moves,
where we wish to choose the different options of placing the two 'right' movements.
nPr=(n−r)!n!
4P2=(4−2)!4!
=2!4!
=24⋅3⋅2=12
We need to remove redundancies, such as when we pick:
R1,R2,D1,D2 is equal to R2,R1,D2,D1
We can divide the number we got from the permutation by 2, since there are two copies of every movement:
212=6
Grid movements can be solved with combinations.
nCr=(n−r)!r!n!
4C2=(4−2)!r!4!
=2⋅24⋅3⋅2
=6