Final answer:
There are 10 different ways to choose two puppies from a litter of five, determined by using the combination formula C(n, k), where n is the total number and k is the number to choose.
Step-by-step explanation:
To determine how many ways two puppies can be chosen from a litter of five, we need to use the concept of combinations in mathematics. When the order of selection does not matter, we use the combination formula, which is C(n, k) = n! / (k!(n - k)!) where n represents the total number of items to choose from, and k is the number of items we are choosing.
In this case, we have five puppies and we want to choose two, so n = 5 and k = 2. The number of ways to choose two puppies from five is calculated as
C(5, 2) = 5! / (2!(5 - 2)!) = (5 * 4) / (2 * 1) = 10.
Therefore, there are 10 different ways to choose two puppies from a litter of five.