Splitting $n^2$ objects into $n$ unordered groups

combinatorics

Is there a way to prove that the number of ways to split up $n^2$ objects into $n$ unordered groups of size $n$ is $(((n^2)!)/((n!)^{(n+1)}))$

Question arises from: https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2019_AMC_10A_Problems/Problem_25

I tried to solve it using summation but that didn't work.
Any ideas?

Best Answer

One way to do such a split up is to fill an $n\times n$ matrix with the $n^2$ objects in random order and then take the rows as subsets (and clearly every split up into $n$ groups of $n$ is obtainable this way). There are $(n^2)!$ different orderings of the $n^2$ objects, but many lead to the same split-up: We can reorder each row in itself without changing the outcome, thus dividing the count by $n!$. As this applies to $n$ rows, we divide $n$ times, i.e., we divide by $n!^n$. Finally, the order of the rows is unimportant, i.e., we need to divide by yet another factor of $n!$. Final result: $$\frac{(n^2)!}{n!^{n+1}}. $$

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