Practice question · Numerical answer
Democritus compares atoms to letters: a few types arranged differently give unlimited variety. If an alphabet has 24 letters, how many distinct three-letter sequences are possible, allowing repeats?
Hints
- Each of the three positions can independently hold any of the 24 letters.
- Compute 24 to the power 3.
Show the answer
13824 (answers within ±10 count)
Why
sequences from just 24 letters in three positions. This is exactly the combinatorial point Democritus made: a small number of element types generates unlimited variety through arrangement alone.
Practise The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Philosophy I is free to start.
More questions on The Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus
- Why would the atomists make the apparently self-defeating claim that what-is-not exists?
- Democritus held that sweetness and bitterness are properties of atoms themselves.
- Democritus held that the cosmos lacks any overarching purpose or design. What follows from this principle for…
- Which are features of the atomist cosmology?
- Sort each claim by whether it describes ancient atomism or modern atomic theory.