In combinatorial mathematics, a k-combination of a finite set S is a subset of k distinct elements of S.

Specifying a subset does not arrange them in a particular order; by contrast, producing the k distinct elements in a specific order defines a sequence without repetition, also called k-permutation (but which is not a permutation of S in the usual sense of that term). As an example, a poker hand can be described as a 5combination of cards from a 52-card deck: the 5 cards of the hand are all distinct, and the order of the cards in the hand does not matter. The number of k-combinations of an n-element set is equal to the binomial coefficient . For this reason the set of all k-combinations of a set X is sometimes denoted by .

Number of k-combination
The number of k-combinations from a given set S of n elements is often denoted in elementary combinatorics texts by C(n,k), or by a variation such as , nCk, nCk or even (the latter form is standard in French and Polish texts). The same number however occurs in many other mathematical contexts, where it is denoted by ; notably it occurs as coefficient in the binomial formula, hence its name binomial coefficient. One can define for all natural numbers k at once by the relation

from which it is clear that and for k > n. To see that these coefficients count k-combinations from S, one can first consider a collection of n distinct variables Xs labeled by the elements s of S, and expand the product over all elements of S:

it has 2n distinct terms corresponding to all the subsets of S, each subset giving the product of the corresponding variables Xs. Now setting all of the Xs equal to the

unlabeled variable X, so that the product becomes (1 + X)n, the term for each kcombination from S becomes Xk, so that that the coefficient of that power in the result equals the number of such k-combinations. Binomial coefficients can be computed explicitly in various ways. To get all of them for the expansions up to (1 + X)n, one can use (in addition to the basic cases already given) the recursion relation

which follows from (1 + X)n = (1 + X)n 1(1 + X); the leads to the construction of Pascal's triangle. For determining an individual binomial coefficient, it is more practical to use the formula

In this formula the numerator gives the number of k-permutations of n, i.e., of sequences of k distinct elements of S, while the denominator gives the number of such k-permutations that give the same k-combination when the order is ignored. When k exceeds n/2, the above formula contains factors common to the numerator and the denominator, and canceling them out gives the relation

This expresses a symmetry that is evident from the binomial formula, and can also be understood in terms of k-combinations by taking the complement of such a combination, which is an (n k)-combination. Finally there is a formula which exhibits this symmetry directly, and has the merit of being easy to remember:

where n! denotes the factorial of n. It is obtained from the previous formula by multiplying denominator and numerator by (n k)!, so it is certainly inferior as a method of computation to that formula. The last formula can be understood directly, by considering the n! permutations of all the elements of S. Each such permutation gives a k-combination by selecting its first k elements. There are many duplicate selections: any combined permutation of the first k elements among each other, and of the final (n k) elements among each other produces the same combination; this explains the division in the formula.

From the above formulas follow relations between adjacent numbers in Pascal's triangle in all three directions:

, , . Together with the basic cases , these allow successive computation of respectively all numbers of combinations from the same set (a row in Pascal's triangle), of k-combinations of sets of growing sizes, and of combinations with a complement of fixed size n k.

Example of counting combinations

As a concrete example, one can compute the number of five-card hands possible from a standard fifty-two card deck as:

An alternative, almost equivalent computation, is

which gives

Using the symmetric formula in terms of factorials gives

Number of combinations with repetition

A k-combination with repetitions, or k-multicombination, or multiset of size k from a set S is given by a sequence of k not necessarily distinct elements of S, where order is not taken into account: two sequences of which one can be obtained from the other by permuting the terms define the same multiset. If S has n elements, the number of such k-multicombinations is also given by a binomial coefficient, namely by

(the case where both n and k are zero is special; the correct value 1 (for the empty 0multicombination) is given by left hand side ). , but not by the right hand side

Example of counting multicombinations

For example, if you have ten types of donuts (n = 10) on a menu to choose from and you want three donuts (k = 3), the number of ways to choose can be calculated as

The analogy with the k-combination case can be stressed by writing the binomial coefficient using a rising factorial power

There is an easy way to understand the above result. Label the elements of S with numbers 0, 1, ..., n 1, and choose a k-combination from the set of numbers { 1, 2, ..., n + k 1 } (so that there are n 1 unchosen numbers). Now change this kcombination into a k-multicombination of S by replacing every (chosen) number x in the k-combination by the element of S labeled by the number of unchosen numbers less than x. This is always a number in the range of the labels, and it is easy to see that every k-multicombination of S is obtained for one choice of a k-combination. A concrete example may be helpful. Suppose there are 4 types of fruits (apple, orange, pear, banana) at a grocery store, and you want to buy 12 pieces of fruit. So n = 4 and k = 12. Use label 0 for apples, 1 for oranges, 2 for pears, and 3 for bananas. A selection of 12 fruits can be translated into a selection of 12 distinct numbers in the range 1,...,15 by selecting as many consecutive numbers starting from 1 as there are apples in the selection, then skip a number, continue choosing as many consecutive numbers as there are oranges selected, again skip a number, then again for pears, skip one again, and finally choose the remaining numbers (as many as there are bananas selected). For instance for 2 apples, 7 oranges, 0 pears and 3 bananas, the numbers chosen will be 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15. To recover the fruits, the numbers 1, 2 (not preceded by any unchosen numbers) are replaced by apples, the numbers 4, 5, ..., 10 (preceded by one unchosen number: 3) by oranges, and the numbers 13, 14,

15 (preceded by three unchosen numbers: 3, 11, and 12) by bananas; there are no chosen numbers preceded by exactly 2 unchosen numbers, and therefore no pears in the selection. The total number of possible selections is