Question

Eudora's grandfather has decided to move to a desert island. In his new place, he will only have room for 2 of his 4 favorite jazz records. The 4 records are by Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, and Lester Young. How many combinations of 2 records, in any order, can he make?

Answer 1

To determine the number of combinations of 2 discs that Eudora's grandfather can make from his 4 favorite jazz discs (Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, and Lester Young), we can use the concept of combinations.

In general, the number of combinations of selecting k items from a set of n items is given by the formula: C(n, k) = n! / (k! * (n-k)!), where "!" denotes the factorial function.

In this case, since Eudora's grandfather wants to select 2 discs out of 4, we can plug in the values n = 4 and k = 2 into the formula to calculate the number of combinations.

C(4, 2) = 4! / (2! * (4-2)!)

= 4! / (2! * 2!)

= (4 * 3 * 2!) / (2! * 2 * 1)

= (4 * 3) / (2 * 1)

= 12 / 2

= 6

Explanation: