View source for Daniel Allen's Solution for 5.5 No. 54 MA375Fall2008walther - Rhea

This is very similar to example 11 on page 379:

Since it explicitly says "No simple closed formula exists for this number [indistinguishable objects and indistinguishable boxes]," the best way to go about the problem is simply list the solutions.

<div style="font-family: Courier;">
Box 1: 5   4   3   3   2<br>
Box 2: 0   1   1   2   2<br>
Box 3: 0   0   1   0   1<br>
</div>

So, the answer is 5.

--[[User:Djallen|Djallen]] 19:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

This solution is correct; although it is very interesting that counting something like this has no closed formula especially since the problem is very general.

--[[User:ysuo|ysuo]] 23:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a very good answer.  I like the way you organized the work.  Very well done.

--[[User:pstechsc|pstechsc]] 16:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)