For you math nuts: a pretty easy combination-lock question?

Question

This is a real-world problem and not somebody's homework or some stumper of a trick question. I know it's not hard but I can't quite remember how to do it. We have a combination lock at work. I do not know how old it is, but nobody knows the combination. It has 5 buttons, 1 through 5, and the combination is a 4-digit one with repetition allowed.

So how many possible combinations are there? If there's not too many I'll just try 'em all. Not much to do there sometimes.

Answer 1

With one repition allowed:

5 x 5 x 4 x 3

which = 300

You have 5 choices for the first one and one other (because of repitition) and then 4 for the third and 3 for the last.

With repition allowed for all:

5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 625

It's unclear if you meant one repetition or any repetition..

Either way... Pretty time consuming...

Answer 2

If the lock has 5 buttons, then there are 5 choices for hitting the first button. If repetition is allowed, then there are also 5 choices for each of the other 3 hits that need to be done. Thus the answer is 5^4 = 625 combinations.

Answer 3

5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 625 different combinations

Answer 4

I thik it's 5^4 = 625 combinations

Answer 5

5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 625 different combinations

(each time you press a digit, you have five different choices)

Answer 6

5*5*4*3*2

Answer 7

The answer is 5^4 = 625.

Answer 8

Simply, if you have 1 repetation/ button, you can get the following:

first attemp: 5 choices

second attemp: 5 choices

third attemp: 4 choices

forth attemp: 4 choices

that equals 400 compinations

if you ment you can repete only one digit of the choices you had

first attemp: 5 choices

second attemp: 5 choices

third attemp: 5 choices

forth attemp: 4 choices

and that equals 500 compinations

so you can choose :)

Answer 9

5^4

625

(sorry, at first I thought it was 5 digit code)

Answer 10

there is a lot i am not sure a thousand it would take you a long time just break the lock