Sam is going to assemble a computer by himself. He has the choice of chips from two brands, a hard drive from four brands, memory from three brands, and an accessory bundle from five local stores. How many different ways can Sam order the parts?
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If an operation can be performed in n 1 ways, and if for each of these a second operation can be performed in n 2 ways, and for each of the first two a third operation can be performed in n 3 ways, and so forth, then the sequence of k operations can be performed in n 1 n 2 . . . n k ways.
Since n 1 = 2 , n 2 = 4 , n 3 = 3 , and n 4 = 5 , there are n l × n 2 × n 3 × n 4 = 2 × 4 × 3 × 5 = 1 2 0 different ways to order the parts.