Question

A blue plane, a red plane and a white plane are waiting to take off from an airport that has two runways. Planes must take off from the airport one at a time, but can take off from either runway. In how many ways can the three takeoffs be scheduled

Answer 1

To calculate the number of ways the three planes can take off, we consider permutations for three items, resulting in 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 different scheduling possibilities.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question relates to the subject of Mathematics and deals with calculating the number of ways three planes can be scheduled for takeoff from two runways. Since there are two runways but planes must take off one at a time, the runways do not affect the scheduling order of the planes. We are essentially looking for permutations of three items (planes).

To calculate the number of ways three planes can take off, we use permutations since the order of takeoffs is important. There are 3 choices for the first plane, 2 choices for the second plane after the first has taken off, and 1 choice for the last plane. Therefore, we can schedule the planes in 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 different ways.