A researcher plans to identify each participant in a certain medical experiment with a code consisting of either a single letter or a pair of distinct letters written in alphabetic order.What is the least number of letters that can be used if there are 12 participants, and each participant is to receive a different code?
C5,2的意思是,从五个里边任取2个,比如说从A,B,C,D,E中取出A,C和取出C,A是一样 的,因为participants 的code无论如何都是按alphabeti的顺序排列的,又因为with a code consisting of either a single letter or a pair of distinct letters written in alphabetic order,所以考虑下来就是C5,1+C5,2=15,有12个pariticipants嘛,所以选5喽,如果是4的话就是C4,1+C4,2=10,不够12了。