Heather is putting 12 colored light bulbs into a string of lights. There are 6 pink light bulbs, 2 yellow light bulbs, and 4 red light bulbs. How many distinct orders of light bulbs are there if two light bulbs of the same color are considered identical (not distinct)?
Question
Heather is putting 12 colored light bulbs into a string of lights. There are 6 pink light bulbs, 2 yellow light bulbs, and 4 red light bulbs. How many distinct orders of light bulbs are there if two light bulbs of the same color are considered identical (not distinct)?
Solution
This is a problem of permutations of multiset. The formula for this is n! / (r1! * r2! * ... * rk!), where n is the total number of items, and r1, r2, ..., rk are the numbers of each type of item.
In this case, n = 12 (the total number of light bulbs), r1 = 6 (the number of pink light bulbs), r2 = 2 (the number of yellow light bulbs), and r3 = 4 (the number of red light bulbs).
So, the number of distinct orders of light bulbs is 12! / (6! * 2! * 4!).
Let's calculate this:
12! = 12 * 11 * 10 * 9 * 8 * 7 * 6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 479,001,600 6! = 6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 720 2! = 2 * 1 = 2 4! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 24
So, the number of distinct orders of light bulbs is 479,001,600 / (720 * 2 * 24) = 13,749,310.
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