when nine basketball players are about to have a freethrow c

when nine basketball players are about to have a free-throw competition, they often draw names out of a hat to randomly select the order in which they shoot. What is the probability that they shoot free throws in alphabetical order? Assume each player has a different name.

Solution

As there are nine basketball players and their names are different, so the total number of ways in which their names can be arranged in any order = 9! = 362880

And out of these 362880 possible arrangements, there would be only one possible way in which the names would be in alphabetical order.

So, the probability that they shoot in alphabetical order = 1 / 362880 = 0.000002755