Question

A clerk at a bookstore is restocking a shelf of best-selling novels. He has five copies each of three different novels. How many different ways can he arrange the books on the shelf?

Answer 1

To arrange the books on the shelf, use the concept of permutations with 3 entities, resulting in 6 different ways.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the number of different ways the books can be arranged on the shelf, we can use the concept of permutations. Since there are 5 copies each of 3 different novels, we can treat each group of 5 copies of a novel as a single entity. So we have 3 entities to arrange on the shelf.

The number of ways to arrange these entities is 3!, which is equal to 3 x 2 x 1 = 6.

Therefore, there are 6 different ways the books can be arranged on the shelf.