A committee of 4 people will be randomly selected from a group of 5 married couples.  What is the probability that no two people chosen will be married to each other?
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When one person is selected for the committee, there will be 9 left to be chosen next. 8 out of 9 will not be married to the selected person, so the probability of selecting someone else=8/9.

So there are now 8 people left from which to choose the next committee member. 6 out of 8 will not be married to either of the two selected members, so now we have (8/9)(6/8)=2/3 as the probability that none of the three selected people will be married to one of the others. There are now 7 remaining people, including the 3 spouses of those selected, so 4/7 will not be married to any of those selected making the final probability:

(2/3)(4/7)=8/21.

The committee now has 4 people and the 6 remaining people include the 4 spouses of those selected.

by Top Rated User (1.2m points)

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