In how many ways can 2k people be seated on a table such that there are n couples, and each couple must sit together

combinatorics

Edit: The table is ROUND.

By sitting together, I mean that the husband and wife must sit together. I think we should first fix one husband, giving us two options for the wife. We should then consider the remaining couples as blocks and the singles as elements( giving us $2k – 2n + n – 1$ ?) elements and then for each couple block, there are 2 arrangements inside the block so $2^n * (2k-n-1)!$ is the ans???

Best Answer

A broad hint, not a complete solution

I could not follow your answer, but it might be worth checking it with an example like $k = 3, n = 1$ to see whether it works.

Rather than placing the husband first, I'd say that you have $n$ items of one type (couples) $C$ and $2(k-n)$ items of another type, singles, $S$.

Label the seats of the table $1, 2, 3, \ldots, 2k$. A seating plan then consists of

  1. a sequence of $n$ C's and $2(k-n)$ S's.
  2. An allocation of the couples to the $C$s and the singles to the $S$s
  3. For each couple, a choice of who gets the first of the pair of seats.

  • How many items of type $1$ are there? [That's the hard part to work out]
  • Assigning the couples to the $C$s can be done in $n!$ ways. What about assigning the singles to the $S$s?
  • Picking a first member for each of $n$ couples amounts to choosing a sequence of $n$ $0$s and $1$s; how many of those are there?

For the first bullet, a stars-and-bars kind of solution is probably what you want to think about.