Imagina que te levantas un día por la mañana para ir a trabajar, abres tu guardarropa y observas que dispones de una camisa azul, una blanca, una roja y una verde, también ves tus pantalones negros de vestir, tu pantalón caqui y tus jeans favoritos. Cuando bajas la vista observas que están tus zapatos negros y los de color café. Teniendo tantas opciones, ¿de cuántas maneras podrías vestirte para ir a trabajar?
Para responder a esta pregunta podrías usar varias estrategias, veámos algunas a continuación
Diagrama de árbol
Podrías comenzar dibujando un "arbolito", para cada opción dibujaremos una ramita y terminaremos contando cuántas ramas tiene el arbolito al final.

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En este caso observamos que el arbolito tiene 24 ramas en total, 6 azules, 6 negras, 6 rojas y 6 verdes.
Enlistar las opciones
Para organizar mejor nuestro listado hagamos una tabla, y para simplificar la escritura asignemos una letra a cada opción así: Camisa azul (A), camisa blanca (B), camisa roja (R), camisa verde (V), pantalón negro (P), pantalón caqui (M), jeans (J), zapatos negros (N), zapatos cafés (C).
APN | BPN | RPN | VPN |
APC | BPC | RPC | VPC |
AMN | BMN | RMN | VMN |
AMC | BMC | RMC | VMC |
AJN | BJN | RJN | VJN |
AJC | BJC | RJC | VJC |
Contamos las opciones y vemos que también son 24.
Usar el Principio General de la Multiplicación
Comencemos colocando tres lineas horizontales, donde cada una represente alguno de los objetos que debemos elegir.
________ ________ ________
Así la primera línea representa las camisas, la segunda los pantalones y la tercera los zapatos. Ahora, sobre cada una de ellas escribiremos las opciones que tenemos para escoger, de la siguiente manera
4 3 2
Ahora, como para cada camisa tenemos tres pantalones para ponernos deberíamos multiplicar las opciones para saber cuántas opciones combinadas hay, pero además para cada pantalón podemos usar dos pares distintos de zapatos, también debemos multiplicar, de forma que el resultado es el producto de todas las opciones disponibles.
\(4\cdot3\cdot2=24\)