[Math] A box contains 10 red balls and 10 blue balls? read description

combinationspermutationsprobability

A box contains $10$ red balls and $10$ blue balls.

What is the probability of choosing exactly $5$ red balls and $5$ blue balls if 10 balls are chosen randomly?

This is my answer:
How many ways to arrange $5B5R$ — $10!/5!5!$

Each arrangement have probability of $10/20*9/19*8/18*7/17*6/16*10/15*9/14*8/13*7/12*6/11 = (10!/5!)^2/(20!/10!) = (10!)^3 / ((5!)^2(20!))$

^ MULTIPLY WITH $10!/5!5! = (10!)^4/((5!)^4*20!)$

Can someone confirm that this is correct

Best Answer

It is easier to explain and do the calculations by temporarily assuming that the balls are all labeled.

There are $\binom{20}{10}$ number of ways to pick ten balls. There are $\binom{10}{5}\cdot \binom{10}{5}$ ways to pick five red and five blue balls.

This gives the probability then as:

$$\frac{\binom{10}{5}^2}{\binom{20}{10}}$$

If you insist on writing with factorials, then this expands as

$$\frac{\binom{10}{5}^2}{\binom{20}{10}}=\frac{10!^2}{5!^4}\cdot\frac{10!^2}{20!}$$ which matches your attempt. I would personally prefer to see the answer as I first gave it however as it makes it much more obvious what the logic behind the answer was and it can be verified to be correct at a glance.