The number of ways to distribute 5 indistinguishable objects into 3 indistinguishable boxes is the number of partitions of 5 into at most 3 positive integers. Let's list all the possible partitions:
5;
4,1;
3,2;
3,1,1;
2,2,1;
Since all the possibilities are listed, there are 5 ways to distribute 5 indistinguishable objects into 3 indistinguishable boxes.
Answer: 5
Email: asuleime@purdue.edu --Asuleime 03:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
