[Math] Number of ways in which four boys and four girls sit alternately in a row and one boy and one girl are not to sit in adjacent seats

combinatorics

Find the number of ways if four boys and four girls sit alternately in a row and one boy and one girl are not to sit in adjacent seats.

I tried to get number of possible ways to sit alternately which was $4! 4! 2!$, but I could not figure out in how many ways some boy and some girl not to sit next to each other.

Best Answer

First the special boy takes a seat at his will. His choice then also determines which seats are for boys and which are for girls. He can choose an end seat in $2$ ways, leaving three admissible seats for the special girl, or an interior seat in $6$ ways, which leaves two admissible seats for the special girl. So there are $2\cdot 3+6\cdot 2=18$ ways to seat the special pair. The rest of the people can then be seated in $3!\cdot 3!=36$ ways on the remaining seats, making a total of $18\cdot36=648$ possibilities.