Through a marksmanship contest, there are 4 strings of 4 glass balls hanging down from a horizontal post. Each bullet can only hit one glass ball at a time, so 16 shots need to be fired.

The only problem is if you shoot a glass ball that has a glass ball hanging below it (on the same string), it will fall off. So given the rule that you can't shoot a glass ball with a glass ball underneath it (and on the same string), how many ways can you shoot all the glass balls?

(16!)/(4!*4!*4!*4!) = 63063000

Posted by Brian Smith on 2004-01-30 14:08:41