Exercise 1 solution

from itertools import product

for n in range(1, 6):
    pairs = [("m%d" % i, "p%d" % i) for i in range(1, n + 1)]
    combos = set(product(*pairs))
    print(n, len(combos), 2 ** n, len(combos) == 2 ** n)

Output:

1 2 2 True
2 4 4 True
3 8 8 True
4 16 16 True
5 32 32 True

Reading it: product picks one chromosome from each pair in every possible way, so each extra pair doubles the count.