[Math] How many pairs of dance partners can be selected from a group of $12$ women and $20$ men

combinationscombinatoricsdiscrete mathematicspermutationsprobability

How many pairs of dance partners can be selected from a group of $12$ women and $20$ men ?

Ans given : $P(20, 12)$

Shouldn't the answer be $20 × 12$ as the pair can be selected from any of the $12$ women and for each women there are $20$ men to choose for.

Best Answer

You first select 12 men from possible 20, that can be done in $\binom{20}{12}$ ways. Now these 12 men have to be paired with the 12 women. Each pairing is simply a bijective function from the set of 12 men to the set of 12 women. Number of such bijective mappings is $12!$. So in all $$\binom{20}{12} \cdot 12!=P(20,12) \quad \text{ways}.$$