In the local boating pond there are 11 plain wooden boats, each with a different number. The owner decides that some of these boats will be painted:
one in blue, one in green, one in red, and one in orange and the remaining are left unpainted. How many ways are there to paint the boats?
I've got 44, is this correct?
There are 11P4 ways to pick the pained boats.
To determine the number of ways to paint the boats, we can break it down step by step.
First, let's choose the boat to be painted blue. We have 11 options for this choice since there are 11 boats.
After painting the blue boat, we need to choose a boat to be painted green. Since we have already painted one boat, we have 10 remaining options for the green boat.
Next, we move on to painting the boat red. We have 9 options left for the boat to be painted red.
Finally, we paint the last remaining boat orange. There is only 1 boat left, so there is only 1 option for the orange boat.
To find the total number of ways, we multiply the number of options for each boat together: 11 * 10 * 9 * 1 = 990.
Therefore, there are 990 ways to paint the boats, not 44 as you suggested.