For every permutation σ of \{1,2,3,4,5,6\}, Lagrange Interpolation gives a polynomial of degree at most 5 with p(x)=σ(x) for every x=1,2,3,4,5,6. Additionally, this polynomial is unique: assume that there exist two polynomials p,q of degree ≤ 5 such that they map {1,2,3,4,5,6} to the same permutation. Then p−q is a nonzero polynomial of degree ≤ 5 with 6 distinct roots, a contradiction. Thus an upper bound for the answer is 6!=720 polynomials. However, not every polynomial obtained by Lagrange interpolation is of degree 5 (for example, p(x)= x). We can count the number of invalid polynomials using finite differences. A polynomial has degree less than 5 if and only if the sequence of 5th finite differences is 0. The 5th finite difference of p(1),p(2),p(3),p(4),p(5),p(6) is p(1)−5p(2)+10p(3)−10p(4)+5p(5)−p(6); thus we want to solve p(1)−5p(2)+10p(3)−10p(4)+5p(5)−p(6)=0 with \{p(1), p(2), p(3), p(4), p(5), p(6)\}=\{1,2,3,4,5,6\}. Taking the above equation modulo 5, we get p(1)=p(6)(mod5)⇒{p(1),p(6)}={1,6}. Note that 1−5p(2)+10p(3)−10p(4)+5p(5)−6=0 if and only if 6−5p(5)+10p(4)−10p(3)+5p(2)−1=0, so we may assume that p(1)=1 and double our result later. Then we have \{p(2), p(3), p(4), p(5)\}=\{2,3,4,5\} and −p(2)+2p(3)−2p(4)+p(5)=1. The above equation taken modulo 2 implies that p(2),p(5) are of opposite parity, so p(3),p(4) are of opposite parity. We do casework on \{p(2), p(5)\}: (a) p(2)=2,p(5)=3;2p(3)−2p(4)=0 is a contradiction (b) p(2)=2,p(5)=5;2p(3)−2p(4)=−2⇒p(3)−p(4)=−1⇒p(3)=3,p(4)=4 (c) p(2)=3,p(5)=2;2p(3)−2p(4)=−2⇒p(3)−p(4)=−1⇒p(3)=4,p(4)=5 (d) p(2)=3,p(5)=4;2p(3)−2p(4)=0 is a contradiction (e) p(2)=4,p(5)=3;2p(3)−2p(4)=2⇒p(3)−p(4)=1 but \{p(3), p(4)\}=\{2,5\}, contradiction (f) p(2)=4,p(5)=5;2p(3)−2p(4)=0 is a contradiction (g) p(2)=5,p(5)=2;2p(3)−2p(4)=4⇒p(3)−p(4)=2, contradiction (h) p(2)=5,p(5)=4;2p(3)−2p(4)=2⇒p(3)−p(4)=1⇒p(3)=3,p(4)=2. Hence there are a total of 720−2(3)=714 polynomials.