Olympiad Maths Prep

Track / Stage 4 / 320 of 340 #580 of 2000

Problem 580

AMC 12 late, AIME early
Combinatorics Difficulty 5.0 Find the answer

Example 6 In a 6×66 \times 6 grid, three identical red cars and three identical black cars are parked, with one car in each row and each column, and each car occupies one cell. The number of ways to park the cars is ( ).
(A) 720
(B) 20
(C) 518400
(D) 14400

Official solution

Assume first that the three red cars are distinct and the three black cars are also distinct. The first car can obviously be placed in any of the 36 squares, giving 36 ways. The second car, which cannot be in the same row or column as the first car, has 25 ways to be placed.

Similarly, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cars have 1616, 99, 44, and 11 ways to be placed, respectively.

Noting that the three red cars are identical and the three black cars are also identical, we have
36×25×16×9×4×13!×3!=(5!)2=14400 \frac{36 \times 25 \times 16 \times 9 \times 4 \times 1}{3! \times 3!} = (5!)^2 = 14400

different ways. Therefore, the answer is (D).

Source: NuminaMath-1.5, licensed Apache-2.0. Statement and solution reproduced as published; topic, difficulty and ordering added by this site.