2,835

dear blog friends,

meet grant.

super athelete, mathmatical genius, and the object of my bff's (nina's) affections.

grant is studying to be an actuary, which involves really intense math.

my bffer jokingly asked grant to figure out exactly how many combinations of outfits i could possibly put together. so funny, right? who would really do the math and come up with a real answer?

grant would.

this was his answer:

"In a situation like this where one is to pick one of X number of A, one of X number of B, and so on, to find the total possible number of combinations one would multiply the number of A times the number of B times ... So for Molly's example (if she had to wear one of each item every day) the total possible number of combinations would be 10 (tops) x 1 (dress) x 6 (pants) x 2 (skirts) x 6 (cardigans/jackets) x 5 (pairs of shoes) = 3,600 possible combinations. The major flaw in this is that she wouldn't wear one of each item every day (pants would not be worn with skirts nor the dress, etc.) and some items may not have to be worn (cardigans/jackets are optional?). If only I knew what could be worn with what, perhaps (definitely) I could figure out the total number of possible combinations...

Mathematically, the 30 for 30 challenge shouldn't be difficult.

However, understanding how women dress- much more challenging...

In this case, the answer would be as follows: for 10 tops, 1 dress, 6 pants, 2 skirts, 6 cardigans/jackets, and 5 pairs of shoes
(10 x 6 x 5) (tops, pants, shoes)
+ (10 x 6 x 5 x 6) (tops, pants, shoes, cardigans/jackets)
+ (10 x 2 x 5) (tops, skirts, shoes)
+ (10 x 2 x 5 x 6) (tops, skirts, shoes, cardigans/jackets)
+ (1 x 5) (dress, shoes)
+ (1 x 6 x 5) (dress, cardigans/jackets, shoes)
= 2,835 possible combinations.

Yes, so it looks like Molly could dress uniquely for the next 7.7618 years with the clothes she's picked out- that would be a challenge..."

thanks guest blogger, grant!

(ps my head hurts just thinking about alllllll that math)