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The SF Chronicle has a word game where all the letters are scrambled up and you have to figure out what the word is. Imagine that a scrambled word is 5 characters long: How many possible solutions are there? What if we know which 5 letters are being used?

Read Solution (Total 3)

There are 26^5 = 1188137 solutions.
If we know the letters, then there are 5! = 120 possible solutions.
14 years agoHelpfull: Yes(8) No(4)

total 26 letters so 26 letters can be arranged in 26^5
and if we know 5 letters than 5! ways
13 years agoHelpfull: Yes(3) No(3)
for all solutions 26^5 is correct but if we know which 5 letetrs are being used n in case all characters are not all different then permutations will be < 5!
12 years agoHelpfull: Yes(2) No(0)

Microsoft Other Question

There are 4 women who want to cross a bridge. They all begin on the same side. You have 17 minutes to get all of them across to the other side. It is night. There is one flashlight. A maximum of two people can cross at one time. Any party who crosses, either 1 or 2 people, must have the flashlight with them. The flashlight must be walked back and forth, it cannot be thrown, etc. Each woman walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the rate of the slower woman's pace.

Woman 1: 1 minute to cross
Woman 2: 2 minutes to cross
Woman 3: 5 minutes to cross
Woman 4: 10 minutes to cross

For example if Woman 1 and Woman 4 walk across first, 10 minutes have elapsed when they get to the other side of the bridge. If Woman 4 then returns with the flashlight, a total of 20 minutes have passed and you have failed the mission. What is the order required to get all women across in 17 minutes? Now, what's the other way?
Suppose you had 8 billiard balls, and one of them was slightly heavier, but the only way to tell was by putting it on a scale against another. What's the fewest number of times you'd have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?