Sunday, November 26, 2006

Math Riddle of the Day

If www.matcheez.com offers T-shirts from their Family Tee Collection in just 30 different colors, how many different combinations of shirts could we purchase for our family IF we have 5 family members? (Remember that order matters since each family member wears a different size.)

HINT
If you can't remember how to do combinations and permutations, try experimenting with just 5 colors and 3 family members then look for the pattern.
Here is an example to get you started:
If the shirt colors are red, blue, yellow, green, orange then Mom can wear 5 different colors of shirts for every shirt that dad can wear. This means that there are 25 different shirt combinations. What happens if we add in a baby who can also wear 5 different colors of shirts for each combination that Mom and Dad can wear?