[Math] Permutation with repetitions / non-distinguishable objects basics

permutations

The question was:

From the letters in MAGOOSH, we are going to make three-letter
"words." Any set of three letters counts as a word, and different
arrangements of the same three letters (such as "MAG" and "AGM") count
as different words. How many different three-letter words can be made
from the seven letters in MAGOOSH?

From my permutation understanding, ans should be: 7P3/2! = 105
But the answer is: 6P3+(3*5)=135 (I understand how it happens!)

But my question is, why indistinguishable object's permutation formula = nPr/K! could not be applied here.(Such as MOM = 3P3/2!=3!/2!=3)

So, I am not sure why "7P3/2!" – is not a valid answer as there is 2 "O"s. What am I missing here? Any explanations?

Best Answer

To clarify the problem with $7P3$:

The reason one might think that dividing by $2$ is a good idea is that there is a symmetry, swapping the two $O's$ That is perfectly correct but for words like $MAG$ the symmetry has no bearing.

How can we use the symmetry to count correctly? Let's start by numbering the $O's$, so we have $O_1,O_2$. Now of course the answer is exactly $7P3=7\times6\times5=210$. These split into two types: those containing neither one of the $O's$ and the rest. The first type contains $5P3=5\times4\times3=60$ words. The second type contains all those words with at least one $O$, and it has $210-60=150$ elements. Now, if we identify $O_1$ and $O_2$ we see that we have counted every word of the second type twice. For example $MOG$ is counted as $MO_1G$ and $MO_2G$ while $MOO$ is counted as $MO_1O_2$ and $MO_2O_1$. Thus, to solve your problem, we need to divide that group by $2$. Thus the final answer is $$60+\frac {210-60}2=60+75=135$$ as desired.