From 12180acb0201d8fbe37a50e2f2aaa51d1c8dfc69 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: jbranchaud <jbranchaud@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2026 21:42:33 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Add Generate Permutations Of All Valid 9-ball Racks as a Math
 TIL

---
 README.md                                     |  7 +++-
 ...-permutations-of-all-valid-9-ball-racks.md | 42 +++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 48 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 math/generate-permutations-of-all-valid-9-ball-racks.md

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 560ba20..de91659 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ working across different projects via [VisualMode](https://www.visualmode.dev/).
 
 For a steady stream of TILs, [sign up for my newsletter](https://visualmode.kit.com/newsletter).
 
-_1807 TILs and counting..._
+_1808 TILs and counting..._
 
 See some of the other learning resources I work on:
 
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ If you've learned something here, support my efforts writing daily TILs by
 * [Linux](#linux)
 * [LLM](#llm)
 * [Mac](#mac)
+* [Math](#math)
 * [Mise](#mise)
 * [MongoDB](#mongodb)
 * [MySQL](#mysql)
@@ -771,6 +772,10 @@ If you've learned something here, support my efforts writing daily TILs by
 - [View All Windows Of The Current App](mac/view-all-windows-of-the-current-app.md)
 - [Write System Clipboard To A File](mac/write-system-clipboard-to-a-file.md)
 
+### Math
+
+- [Generate Permutations Of All Valid 9-ball Racks](math/generate-permutations-of-all-valid-9-ball-racks.md)
+
 ### Mise
 
 - [Create Umbrella Task For All Test Tasks](mise/create-umbrella-task-for-all-test-tasks.md)
diff --git a/math/generate-permutations-of-all-valid-9-ball-racks.md b/math/generate-permutations-of-all-valid-9-ball-racks.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0454d84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/math/generate-permutations-of-all-valid-9-ball-racks.md
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+# Generate Permutations Of All Valid 9-ball Racks
+
+I wanted to produce a full listing of all valid rack arrangements for the game
+of [9-ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-ball). The constraints on how a
+9-ball rack can be arranged are, first, that the 1 ball must be placed at the
+head of the diamond and, second, that the 9 ball must be placed at the center of
+the diamond. After that, all other balls (2 through 8) can be placed in any
+arrangement.
+
+Because each of those seven remaining balls can be arranged in distinct
+orderings where each ball is placed once, this is a
+[_permutation_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation) problem.
+
+> In elementary combinatorics, the k-permutations, or partial permutations, are
+> the ordered arrangements of k distinct elements selected from a set. When k is
+> equal to the size of the set, these are the permutations in the previous
+> sense.
+
+For this problem, the seven distinct elements can be arranged into `7!` (seven
+factorial) unique permutations. That is, 5040 permutations.
+
+I can use [Ruby's `Array#permutations`
+method](https://docs.ruby-lang.org/en/4.0/Array.html#method-i-permutation) to
+enumerate these 5040 permutations like so:
+
+```ruby
+[2,3,4,5,6,7,8].permutation.map do |perm|
+  [1, *perm[0..2], 9, *perm[3..7]]
+end.to_a
+=> [[1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 5, 6, 7, 8],
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 5, 6, 8, 7],
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 5, 7, 6, 8],
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 5, 7, 8, 6],
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 5, 8, 6, 7],
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 5, 8, 7, 6],
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 6, 5, 7, 8],
+ ...
+ [1, 8, 7, 6, 9, 5, 3, 2, 4],
+ [1, 8, 7, 6, 9, 5, 3, 4, 2],
+ [1, 8, 7, 6, 9, 5, 4, 2, 3],
+ [1, 8, 7, 6, 9, 5, 4, 3, 2]]
+```