How do permutations and combinations differ?

1 Answer
Nov 24, 2014

A permutations is an arrangement, so the order of its elements matters; on the other hand, a combination is a subset, so the order of its elements does not matter.


Example

All permutations of two elements from #{a,b,c}# are:

#ab, ba, ac,ca, bc#, and #cb#

All combinations of two elements from #{a,b,c}# are:

#{a,b}, {a,c}#, and #{b,c}#


I hope that this was helpful.