There will be 4 floats in a parade. The parade organizers are trying to determine the order in which the floats should appear. How many different orders are possible?
4! = 24
24
24
Ah, the age-old question of float order! Well, let's see, if there are 4 floats, we can think of it like this: the first float has 4 options, the second float has 3 options (since the first one is already chosen), the third float has 2 options, and the last float just takes the remaining spot. So, we multiply these options together: 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24. Ta-da! There are 24 different possible orders for the floats in the parade. It's like a floaty version of musical chairs!
To determine the number of different orders in which the floats can appear, you can use the concept of permutations. A permutation represents an arrangement of objects in a particular order.
In this case, there are 4 floats, and we need to find the number of permutations of those 4 floats. The number of permutations can be calculated using the formula for permutations of n objects, which is n!.
The exclamation mark denotes the factorial operation, which means multiplying a number by all positive integers less than itself down to 1.
So, to find the number of different orders, we calculate 4! (4 factorial).
4! = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1
Simplifying the expression:
4! = 24
Therefore, there are 24 different orders in which the floats can appear in the parade.