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jmc

prealgebra senior

Problem

How many ways can I put down two indistinguishable pieces on an ordinary chessboard, if the pieces must either be in the same row or be in the same column?
Solution
The first piece can go in any of the squares. The second piece can then be in any of positions, since there are unoccupied squares in the row of the first piece, as well as unoccupied squares in the column of the first piece. This would seem to give us choices for the placement of the two pieces. However, order doesn't matter (we said the pieces are indistinguishable), so the actual number of choices is , which is .
Final answer
448