[Math] Choosing code using digits and letters

combinatoricsprobability

Want to put together a secret code. The code consists of 2 different digits and 3 different English letters (26 options).
How many different codes can be put together?

I tried to think of it this way:
$$10*9*26*25*24=1,404,000$$

Because I first choose two digits and then three letters.
The answer by the book is:

$$\binom{10}{2}\binom{26}{3}*5!=14,040,000 $$

I understand why they did it, but I do not know what I'm missing to get answer similar to their own.

Thank you very much.

Best Answer

Before you can put the code together, you need to choose which spaces are going to be numbers and which spaces are going to be letters. There are $5$ spaces altogether (since you are making a code from $5$ symbols) and there are $2$ spaces for numbers. Therefore, there are $5 \choose 2$ ways to pick which spaces will be where the numbers go and which spaces will be where the letters go. Thus, your answer should be:

$${5 \choose 2}*10*9*26*25*24=14,040,000$$