I am trying to figure out how many permutations exist in a set where none of the numbers equal their own position in the set; for example, $3,1,5,2,4$ is an acceptable permutation where $3,1,2,4,5$ is not because 5 is in position 5. I know that the number of total permutations is $n!$.
Is there a formula for how many are acceptable given the case that no position holds its own number?
Number of permutations of $n$ where no number $i$ is in position $i$
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combinatorics
permutations
faq
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1This recent math.SE question asks for a proof of one of the formulas for the number of derangements: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/14477/. – 2010-12-17
3 Answers
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What you are looking for is known as derangement. However, for counting the number of derangement for say $n$-elements you could possible use a trick, compute$\frac{n!}{e}$ and then round off to an integer and this will give you the desired result.
This is actually another application of $e$, which was discovered by Jacob Bernoulli in the problem of derangement, also known as the hat check problem.
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Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derangement
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3Please add more content from the cited page (e.g. describe derangements, etc). Otherwise, this should really be left as a comment. – 2014-08-07
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In his combinatorics lecture notes, Jacob Lurie analyses the problem of derangements. It is at the end of these note: http://www.math.harvard.edu/~lurie/155notes/lecture3.pdf
and continues into these