> Question: > > For a given item n in the sequence N, how many parity number > combinations will > occur in the resulting set of all modulo 2^(2n) binary > representations? (How > many parity combinations for a given item N?) Trent- Another way to ask the question: Given 2k slots, how many distinct ways can they be filled with exactly k 0s and k 1s? The answer is: 2k choose k (The number of ways to select k items out of 2k). You choose k to be 0, the rest must be 1. I don't have OOo in front of me... I can tell you that in MS Excel, the formula is =COMBIN(n,k) . The general formula for n choose k is n! ----------- k! (n-k)! In your case, it's (2k)! ---------- 2 (k!) which reduces to 2k (2k-1) (2k-2) ... (k+2) (k+1) --------------------------------- k! For example, for your k=4 case, the number is 8*7*6*5 / 4*3*2*1 = 70. > Is number of binary parities bounded underneath by 2^(2[n-1]) for all > N? > No. For k=5, 2k choose k = 252, 2^(2*4) = 256; similarly for k>5 the exponential term grows faster. Thanks - it had been a while since I actually used some combinatorics. -Alex __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss