Five ball of different colors are placed in a three different box. Each can hold all the five ball. In how many different ways can we place the balls so that no box remains empty?
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There are two possible configurations, assuming that the boxes are all the same. They are: (1) 1, 1, 3 and (2) 1, 2, 2. When taking into the account that the boxes are different, we will have the multiply by 3 for each of the configurations in the end (since 2 ! 3 ! = 3 ).
Now for the first configuration, the number of ways is ( 5 3 ) ( choose 3 out of 5 balls for the box with 3 balls ) × 2 ( arrangements for the remaining 2 balls ) × 3 ( multiplier )
For the second configuration, the number of ways is ( 5 2 ) ( choose 2 out of 5 balls for one of the boxes with 2 balls ) × ( 3 2 ) ( arrangements for the remaining 3 balls ) × 3 ( multiplier )
Hence the answer is 150.