temptation

n 1: something tempting or enticing [syn: {enticement}]

2: the desire to have or do something that you know you should

avoid; "he felt the temptation and his will power

weakened"

3: the act of influencing by exciting hope or desire; "his

enticements were shameless" [syn: {enticement}]

permutation

An ordering of a certain number of elements of a

given set.

For instance, the permutations of (1,2,3) are (1,2,3) (2,3,1)

(3,1,2) (3,2,1) (1,3,2) (2,1,3).

Permutations form one of the canonical examples of a "{group}"

- they can be composed and that you can find an inverse

permutation that reverses the action of any given permutation.

A permutation is a {bijection}.

The number of permutations of r things taken from a set of n

is

n P r ◦ n! / (n-r)!

where "n P r" is usually written with n and r as subscripts

and n! is the {factorial} of n.

What the football pools call a "permutation" is not a

permutation but a {combination} - the order does not matter.

(1995-04-10)