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Elena is managing a construction project. She has 7 workers available to work on a given day, and she needs to select 5 of them.
How many different sets of 5 workers can Elena choose?

Elena is managing a construction project. She has 77 workers available to work on a given day, and she needs to select 55 of them.\newlineHow many different sets of 55 workers can Elena choose?

Full solution

Q. Elena is managing a construction project. She has 77 workers available to work on a given day, and she needs to select 55 of them.\newlineHow many different sets of 55 workers can Elena choose?
  1. Identify problem type: Identify the type of problem. Elena is choosing 55 workers out of 77 without regard to the order in which they are chosen. This is a combination problem, not a permutation, because the order does not matter.
  2. Use combination formula: Use the combination formula to calculate the number of different sets. The number of ways to choose kk items from a set of nn items is given by the combination formula nCk=n!k!×(nk)!nCk = \frac{n!}{k! \times (n - k)!}, where !! denotes factorial.
  3. Apply combination formula: Apply the combination formula to the given numbers. Elena has 77 workers and needs to choose 55, so we need to calculate 7C5=7!5!×(75)!7C5 = \frac{7!}{5! \times (7 - 5)!}.
  4. Simplify factorials: Simplify the factorials in the formula. \newlineCalculate 7!=7×6×5×4×3×2×17! = 7 \times 6 \times 5 \times 4 \times 3 \times 2 \times 1, 5!=5×4×3×2×15! = 5 \times 4 \times 3 \times 2 \times 1, and (75)!=2!=2×1(7 - 5)! = 2! = 2 \times 1.
  5. Cancel common terms: Cancel out the common terms in the numerator and the denominator. 7!7! has 5!5! in it, so we can cancel 5!5! from both the numerator and the denominator. This leaves us with 7C5=(7×6)/(2×1)7C5 = (7 \times 6) / (2 \times 1).
  6. Perform calculation: Perform the calculation. Calculate (7×6)/(2×1)=42/2=21(7 \times 6) / (2 \times 1) = 42 / 2 = 21.
  7. Conclude with final answer: Conclude with the final answer. Elena can choose 2121 different sets of 55 workers from the 77 available workers.

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