Combinatorial - how many ways to divide objects into two groups

As a part of a bigger problem I have to determine In how many ways $37$ different objects can be divided among two groups of $32$ and $5$ objects each if

i) object $A$ and $B$ cannot belong to the same group

ii) object $A$ and $B$ must belong to the same group.

My skills in combinatorics are obviously not what they have been since as I remember from that course, this is a typical standard problem, but i can't manage to make any conclusions. My idea is just to determine all combinations to divide the $37$ objects into groups of $32$ and $5$ each and then subtract the cases of restriction i) and ii) separately.

I guess that is one way to solve the problem?

Then for i), we first notice that we can divide our $37$ objects into groups of $32$ and $5$ each in ${37 \choose 32}$ ways. But how many of theese consist both object $A$ and $B$? If we were just dealing with one group I guess we'd only have to first place A and B in the group and then count the number of combinations to place the other objects in that group? Can we do something alike in this case?

Objects A and B cannot belong to the same group:

There are $\dbinom{35}{31}=52360$ ways to:

• Put A in the first group and B in the second group
• Choose $31$ out of $35$ objects for the first group
• Put the remaining objects in the second group

There are $\dbinom{35}{31}=52360$ ways to:

• Put B in the first group and A in the second group
• Choose $31$ out of $35$ objects for the first group
• Put the remaining objects in the second group

So there are $52360+52360=104720$ ways to do that.

Objects A and B must belong to the same group:

There are $\dbinom{35}{30}=324632$ ways to:

• Put A in the first group and B in the first group
• Choose $30$ out of $35$ objects for the first group
• Put the remaining objects in the second group

There are $\dbinom{35}{3}=6545$ ways to:

• Put A in the second group and B in the second group
• Choose $3$ out of $35$ objects for the second group
• Put the remaining objects in the first group

So there are $324632+6545=331177$ ways to do that.

Item (i)

Your solution is in (one of) the right direction(s).

A direct solution would be:

• Choose if $A$ will be in the largest or the smallest group

After this, $B$ will have to be in the other group, and we have 35 elements left to organize.

• Choose the other 31 elements of the largest group among the remaining 35

EDIT:

Item(ii)

A direct solution could consist of two cases.

-$A$ and $B$ in the small group

You have to choose other 3 elements to complete the small group.

-$A$ and $B$ in the large group

You have to choose other 5 elements to complete the small group.

• I edited my question (restriction ii). – alot Oct 17 '14 at 21:28

In each case there are $2$ ways to choose groups for $A,B$ satisfying the restriction. In case (i) they are both equivalent for when is left, and the remaining choices give $\binom{25}4$ possibilities, for $2\times\binom{25}4$ in all. In case (ii) the remaining choices are different and must be computed separately and added, for $\binom{35}5+\binom{35}3$ possibilities.