Combinatorics – n Indistinguishable Balls in m Distinguishable Boxes with m > n

combinatorics

Given $n$ indistinguishable particles and $m>n$ distinguishable boxes, we place at random each particle in one of the boxes. What is the probability that in $n$ preselected boxes, one and only one particle will be found is?

I think the answer should be for $1/m^n$ since the ways should be $^mC_n/m^n$ but since the boxes are preselected the answer would come out to be $1/m^n$.

Best Answer

Your answer is incorrect because when you do $m^n$, you are treating each particle separately by giving each one $m$ choices, essentially making them "distinguishable." To see this, let's say you give the first choice to particle $p_1$, second choice to $p_2$, and so on, all the way to $p_n$. Then you will see that something like $$p_1,p_2,p_3,p_4,\ldots,p_n,E,E,\dots,E$$ where $E$ represents empty boxes would be counted differently from $$p_2,p_1,p_3,p_4,\ldots,p_n,E,E,\ldots,E$$ when, in fact, they should be counted the same. To account for this, you would need actually need to do a method known as Stars and Bars, which you can look into further in the Wikipedia page linked.

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