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Pascal's Rule For Any Positive Integers N and K

1. Pascal's Rule describes a relationship between binomial coefficients in Pascal's triangle. Specifically, it states that the binomial coefficient of choosing k objects from n+1 objects equals the sum of the binomial coefficients of choosing k and k-1 objects from n objects. 2. Pascal's Rule can be proven algebraically by manipulating factorials. It can also be proven combinatorially by considering the two cases of including or excluding the last object of a set when choosing k objects. 3. While commonly known as Pascal's triangle, the concept was known centuries earlier in China and other parts of Asia, with some scholars crediting its discovery or study to ancient Chinese, Persian, and Indian mathematicians.

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46 views1 page

Pascal's Rule For Any Positive Integers N and K

1. Pascal's Rule describes a relationship between binomial coefficients in Pascal's triangle. Specifically, it states that the binomial coefficient of choosing k objects from n+1 objects equals the sum of the binomial coefficients of choosing k and k-1 objects from n objects. 2. Pascal's Rule can be proven algebraically by manipulating factorials. It can also be proven combinatorially by considering the two cases of including or excluding the last object of a set when choosing k objects. 3. While commonly known as Pascal's triangle, the concept was known centuries earlier in China and other parts of Asia, with some scholars crediting its discovery or study to ancient Chinese, Persian, and Indian mathematicians.

Uploaded by

Ashutosh
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
Download as pdf or txt
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THEOREM OF THE DAY

Pascals Rule For any positive integers n and k,


! ! !
n+1 n n This is read as n + 1 choose k = n choose k + n choose
= + . k 1, invoking its combinatorial interpretation: the
k k k1 number of choices if you must select k objects from
An algebraic proof:
n + 1 is the same as the number of choices if you
Pascals Triangle
! !
n n n! n! are selecting from n objects and have an initial
+ = + Rows are numbered from zero;
k k1 k!(n k)! (k 1)!(n (k 1))! choice of whether to take k or k 1. This
cells in each row are likewise
(n k + 1) n! + k n! suggests an easy combinatorial proof: a
= numbered from
0 zero. Row zero
k!(n k + 1)! choice of k from a row of n + 1 objects
consists of 0 = 1; the n-th
n!(n k + 1 + k)  will either exclude the last object, in
= row starts with n0 = 1. which case all k must be chosen
k!(n + 1 k)!
(n + 1)! n+1
! from the first n; or it will in-
= = . QED clude it, leaving k 1
k!((n + 1) k)! k to be chosen from
the first n.
QED

Pascals rule defines what is usually called Pascals triangle, presented as shown above. However, this is a misnomer for
two reasons. Firstly, it isnt a triangle at all, unless font size decreases exponentially with increasing row number; it is
more like a Chinese hat! Which is appropriate enough because, secondly, this triangle and rule were known to the
Chinese scholar Jia Xian, six hundred years before Blaise Pascal. Aligning the rows of the triangle on the left
(as shown on the left) seems to make much better sense, typographically, computationally and combinat-
orially. A well-known relationship with the Fibonacci series, for instance, becomes immediately ap-
parent as a series of diagonal sums.
The work of Jia Xian has passed to us through the commentary of
Yang Hui (1238-1298) and Pascals triangle is known in China as
Yang Huis triangle. In Iran, it is known as the Khayyam trian-
gle after Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), although it was known to
Persian, and Indian, scholars in the tenth century. Peter Cameron
cites Robin Wilson as dating Western study of Pascals triangle as
far back as the Majorcan theologian Ramon Llull (12321316).
Web link: ptri1.tripod.com. See the wikipedia entry on nomenclature.
Further reading: Pascals Arithmetical Triangle by A.W.F. Edwards, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. The Cameron citation
appears in Combinatorics: Topics, Techniques, Algorithms, by Peter J. Cameron, CUP, 1994, section 3.3.
Created by Robin Whitty for www.theoremoftheday.org

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