How many ways are there to put 5 b***s in 2 boxes if the b***s are distinguishable but the boxes are not?
Why did you ask under your username awsomeee?
the only difference is how many b***s are in each box.
0,5
1,4
2,3
3,2
4,1
5,0
That is 6 ways.
I'm assuming here that we can have an empty box.....since the boxes are indistinguishable, n b***s in the first box and 5-n b***s in the second box is the same as 5-n in the first and n in the second.
So
Choose 5 b***s in the first box and none in the second = 1 way to do this
Choose 4 of 5 b***s to go in one box and the remaining one in the second = C(5,4) = 5 ways
Choose 3 of 5 b***s to go in one box and the remaining two in the second = C(5,3) = 10 ways
So........1 + 5 + 10 = 16 ways
To see the logic of this........suppose that the boxes are identifiable.....then, we have 25 ways to distribute the b***s since each ball can go into one of two boxes. But, if the boxes are idistinguishable, the order doesn't matter so the total ways = 25 / 2! = 32/2 = 16