1.
Background of Pascal’s Triangle
Pascal's triangle was being used long before Pascal published it. The triangle was
known to the Chinese as early as the twelfth century, which was about five centuries
before the time of Blaise Pascal. Ji Xian is attributed with writing the triangle out to
the 6th row, and identifying the method we know today of generating it: a given
element of the triangle is found by adding together the two values above it. Yang Hui
provided the first known presentation of Pascal's triangle in 1261, written out to the
6th row, and it was later depicted by Chu Shi-Kie in 1303 written out to the 8th row.
In 1654, Blaise Pascal began his work on probability theory and his own arithmetic
triangle. Among the people that Pascal was associated with, gambling was a popular
distraction. Two of the men in this circle sought an answer to the question of what to
do with money already wagered if a game has to be interrupted. The question was
"how should it be divided according to what each player might reasonably expect to
win (or lose) if the play were continued?"(Davidson, 1983, pg. 14).Blaise Pascal and
his close associate Fermat saw this as a mathematical problem, and in an exchange
of letters from July to October of 1654 they were able to work out a solution. This is
when Pascal first started studying the triangle and how it could be used (Davidson,
1983).
Pascal stared constructing his own triangle by studying how Chu Shi-Kie constructed
his triangle. He started with two lines that formed a right angle. He then divided it into
equal lengths and connected the resulting points to make a triangle composed of
boxes similar to the picture shown below. He noticed that numbers can now be seen
with reference to other numbers in a context of systematic and repeating
relationships. The numbers on the outside (on the very top and very left of the
triangle) were simply there to organize it and are not actually included in the triangle
itself. Once we get into the actual triangle we can see that any number (x) turns out
to be the sum of the number in the box directly to the left of (x) plus the number in
the square directly above (x) (Davidson, 1983).
2. Pascal’s Triangle Patterns
Hidden Sequences
The first two columns aren’t too interesting,
they’re just the ones and the natural
numbers.
The next column is the triangular numbers. You
can think of the triangular numbers as the number
of dots it takes to make various sized triangles.
Similarly the fourth column is the tetrahedral
numbers, or triangular pyramidal numbers. As
their name suggests they represent the number of
dots needed to make pyramids with triangle
[Link] columns continue in this way, describing the “simplices” which are just
extrapolations of this triangle/tetrahedron idea to arbitrary dimensions. The next column
is the 5-simplex numbers, followed by the 6-simplex numbers and so on.
Powers of Two
If we sum each row, we obtain powers of base 2, beginning with 2⁰=1.
Power of Eleven
The triangle also reveals powers of base 11. All you
have to do is squish the numbers in each row together.
Which is easy enough for the first 5 rows, but what
about when we get to double-digit entries?
Turns out all you have to do is carry the tens place
over to the number on its left.
Perfect Squares
We can locate the perfect squares of the natural
numbers in column 2 by summing the number to the
right with the number below the number to the right.
For example,
2² → 1+3=4
3² → 3+6
4² → 6+10=16
and so on…
Fibonacci Sequence
To uncover the hidden Fibonacci Sequence sum
the diagonals of the left justified Pascal Triangle.
Sierpinski Triangle
Using the original orientation of Pascal’s
Triangle, shade in all the odd numbers and you’ll
get a picture that looks similar to the famous
fractal Sierpinski Triangle
Combinatorics
We find that in each row of Pascal’s Triangle n is the row
number and k is the entry in that row, when counting
from zero.
Expanding Binomials
Suppose you have the binomial (x + y) and you
want to raise it to a power such as 2 or 3.
Normally you’d need to go through the long
process of multiplying, but with Pascal’s
Triangle you can avoid the hassle and skip to
the answer.
