In how many ways can we seat 100 people around 20 different circular
tables in such a way that there are five people per table?
Am I right in assuming that we're only considering unique situations?
For example, if we take 2 people at 2 tables with 1 per table.
Then we'd have [A][B] and [B][A] which is actually only 1 arrangement.
$\frac{C(2,1)}{2} = \frac{2}{2} = 1$
Or 4 people, 2 tables, 2 per
{[AB] [CD]} {[AC] [BD]} {[AD] [BC]} which is three arrangements since we don't count [B,A], [C,A], [D,A], [D,C], [D,B] or [B,C]
$\frac{C(4,2)}{2} = \frac{6}{2} = 3$
Therefore, the formula I got was $\frac{C(totalPeople,peoplePerTable)}{numberOfTables}$
For 100 people at 20 tables with 5 per table.
We have $\frac{C(100,5)}{20} = 3,764,376$ possibilities
Best Answer
There are $100!$ ways to line up the people. Take the first $5$ and seat them around the first table in order. Do the same for the second $5$ and the second table. Continue until you’ve seated all $100$. If the tables are individually identified, and each of the $20$ tables has a designated head seat, each of these $100!$ seatings counts as a different arrangement. If the tables are individually identified, but seatings that are equivalent under a rotation of the table are not considered distinct, then each seating at each table has been counted $5$ times, once for each possible location of a head seat, and there are therefore only $\dfrac{100!}{5^{20}}$ distinct arrangements.
You appear to be assuming, however, that the tables are not individually identified and that rotationally equivalent arrangements at a table are not distinguished. In that case each distinct arrangement has been counted $20!$ times in the figure $\dfrac{100!}{5^{20}}$, once for each of the $20!$ permutations of the tables, so there are only $\dfrac{100!}{5^{20}20!}$ distinct arrangements. This is a bit over $4\times10^{125}$.