For example, in trying to determine the number of ways that a team captain and goalkeeper of a soccer team can be picked from a team consisting of 11 members, the team captain and the goalkeeper cannot be the same person, and once chosen, must be removed from the set. In the case of permutations without replacement, all possible ways that elements in a set can be listed in a particular order are considered, but the number of choices reduces each time an element is chosen, rather than a case such as the 'combination' lock, where a value can occur multiple times, such as 3-3-3. Essentially this can be referred to as r-permutations of n or partial permutations, denoted as nP r, nP r, P (n,r), or P(n,r) among others. The calculator provided computes one of the most typical concepts of permutations where arrangements of a fixed number of elements r, are taken from a given set n. This means that for the example of the combination lock above, this calculator does not compute the case where the combination lock can have repeated values, for example, 3-3-3. There are different types of permutations and combinations, but the calculator above only considers the case without replacement, also referred to as without repetition. A typical combination lock for example, should technically be called a permutation lock by mathematical standards, since the order of the numbers entered is important 1-2-9 is not the same as 2-9-1, whereas for a combination, any order of those three numbers would suffice. Permutations are specific selections of elements within a set where the order in which the elements are arranged is important, while combinations involve the selection of elements without regard for order. Permutations and combinations are part of a branch of mathematics called combinatorics, which involves studying finite, discrete structures.

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