FLINTSTONES, CANNON BALLS AND CALCULUS

Dusan Ivanic*, Milutin Studen**, Mirjana Jovanovic***

"Isidora Sekulic" Grammar School, Vladike Platona 2, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
* third grade student, dusanawp@gmail.com,
** third grade student, milutinstuki98@gmail.com,
*** mentor, mirjana.jovanovic.ns@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Word calculus is derived from Latin and it means pebble stone. Why is the whole
mathematical discipline named after a stone? The answer is hidden in the ancient
times, long before so called Arabic numbers were introduced. People calculated
using pebbles, because the numeral system was not positional, so the word has
remained. On the other hand, many interesting properties of number sequences
become obvious and easy to prove if interpreted geometrically. Figured numbers,
pyramidal numbers, even Fibonacci numbers could be represented by a set of
points - "pebbles". Therefore some of their properties, instead of being proved by
mathematical induction, become obvious. Furthermore, the very essence of an
induction is not lost. It is embodied in these proofs. And finally, we come to our
"pebble stones" again, since mathematical induction and number series are
studied in schools as a part of pre-Calculus and Calculus.

The word 'calculus' is derived from Latin and it originally meant 'pebble'.
You may wonder what brings stones and numbers together? Those pebbles that you
kick in the street each day have been helpful in calculations for centuries.
Nowadays, people compute using calculators and computers, but what did they use
thousands years ago? In ancient times, except in Babylonia, numbers were not
represented in a positional numeral system, so it was hard to do calculations with
those notations.
Instead, pebbles were used for calculations - lines in the sand or soil
represented ones, tens, hundreds etc., like abacus nowadays, so the word 'calculus'
remained.
 Next time you kick a pebble think of what someone used to do with such a
stone a few centuries ago, when there were no calculators, but only 'calculi'.

Figured numbers

Ancient Greeks went even further. They represented numbers

geometrically using dots / pebbles to represent both numbers and number
sequences. The theory of figured numbers goes back to Pythagoras himself. A dot
or pebble was used to represented number 1 – unit or monad, two dots or pebbles
placed apart represented number 2, and at the same time defined the straight line
joining the two dots; three dots or pebbles, representing 3, marked out the first
plane figure - a triangle. Four dots represented 4 and also defined the first solid
figure - a pyramid. It seems that Pythagoreans were acquainted with various
figured numbers, for example: (a) triangular numbers (b) square numbers (c)
oblong numbers, in a word: polygonal numbers.
Also there are various number sequences which are not represented by
figured numbers but can be geometrically shown in the same way as figured ones.
The important thing to know about the figured numbers is that they are
formed by gnomons. Gnomons are placed round 1 or monad to produce different
figured numbers. Pythagoras explained them as 'successively added odd numbers'.
Actually, they represent the way that figured numbers grow, for example, a
gnomon that forms triangular numbers is a line, for square numbers it is in shape of
two lines that form a right angle. As the perplexity of figured numbers goes up so
does the perplexity of their gnomons (Figures 1, 2, 3).

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Natural numbers
Odd numbers represented
represented by Even numbers
by gnomons
represented of square
by gnomons
gnomons of triangular
numbers
of oblong numbers
numbers
Pythagoras himself discovered that the sum of successive natural numbers starting
from 1 makes a triangular number as it is shown in Figure 1. Then, the sum of
successive odd numbers, starting from 1 forms square numbers - Figure 2. The sum
of successive even numbers starting from the first even number 2 is always an
oblong number - Figure 3.
Using previously described numbers and their gnomons that actually form number
sequences, Pythagoreans were able to prove some of their properties.

Square numbers

To begin with square numbers. It is easy to notice

that starting from a unit or monad and adding
gnomons that form a sequence of successive odd
numbers (that is a very representation of a sequence of
odd numbers) we always obtain a square of a number
of terms in the sequence (Figure 2). It means that the
sum of a sequence of odd numbers is always a square
of a number of terms in the sequence. For example,
adding first two odd numbers that are 1 and 3 we get
Figure 4 4, which is a square of two, i.e. . Adding
2
1+3=2

together first three terms which are 1, 3 and 5, we obtain 9, that is a square of 3, i.e.
1+3+5=32. The next square with 16=4 2 dots is obtained by adding a gnomon
i.e. a fourth odd number 7, that is equal to 2 ∙3+1. The pattern is the same for any
square of a side n - the next square of a side n + 1 is obtained by adding 2n+1 dots
that is the following odd number. Those dots are added to two sides of a length n,
with one dot being added in the corner forming rectangular line, gnomon of a
square number. Thus,
sn +1=1+3+5+…+ ( 2n+1 )=( n+1 )2 (Figure 4).

Oblong and triangular numbers

Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans also discovered that the
sum of any number of successive even numbers starting with 2 was an 'oblong'
number - which formed a rectangle with sides that differ by 1. Also they noticed
that an oblong number was twice a triangular number. The shape of oblong number
gnomons is similar to a shape of square number gnomons, except it always has an
even number of dots. So oblong numbers generated the sequence of even numbers
(Figure 3). These facts would be further pointed out by taking two dots
representing number 2 and placing the even numbers 4, 6, 8, etc. round them,
gnomon-wise and successively. The successive oblong numbers are
1 ∙2=2, 2 ∙3=6 , 3 ∙ 4=12, 4 ∙5=20
or generally o n=n ( n+1 ) .
It is clear that no two of these numbers are similar. With this in mind, while the
adding of the successive odd numbers as gnomons round 1 gives only one form,
the square, the addition of the successive even numbers to 2 gives a succession of
'oblong' numbers all dissimilar in form.
Triangular numbers could be represented in the
form of a triangular grid of points where the first
column is a monad or unit and each subsequent
column contains one more element than the previous
one does. The sequence of triangular numbers is
made from a sequence of positive integers. 1, 2, 3,
…, n. On the other hand, the triangular numbers
themselves form a sequence
1 ,1+2 , 1+2+3 ,1+2+3+ …+n
Figure 5
i.e.
1, 3, 6, 10, 15 ,21 ,…
The question is: Is it possible to estimate or compute any triangular number
without adding one by one? The power of 'dots' or 'pebbles' could easily lies in the
answer to this very question. By adding a new row of dots that contains n+1 dots
and counting all the dots, we can find the next number of the sequence. Let us
recall the fact that two equal triangular numbers form an oblong number. Thus, we
can double the number of dots and form a rectangle, i.e. oblong number whose
height is n+1 and width is n. Let on be the number of dots in the rectangle. The sum
of them is easy to count and it equals n(n+1). Now, the triangular number contains
1
half of those dots or n ( n+1 ). Finally, we come up with
2
1
the formulae for any triangular number t n= n ( n+1 ) ,
2
which is also a formulae for a sum of n successive
positive integers starting from 1, i.e.
1
1+2+3+…+ n= n ( n+1 ) .
2
Furthermore, the sum of two consecutive triangular numbers is a square number,
i.e.
Figure 6 1 1
t n+ t n +1= n ( n+1 ) + ( n+1 ) ( n+2 )=( n+1 )2 (Figure 6).
2 2
On the other hand, a square number is a sum of consecutive odd numbers, as
proved previously and shown in Figure 4. Therefore, sn +1=t n+ t n +1.

Pyramidal numbers

There are also so called pyramidal numbers which consists of dots that
form a pyramid. Depending on the base of the pyramid they form triangular
pyramid with a triangular base, square pyramid with a quadrilateral base etc.
The first term of a sequence is always 1. In the case of triangular pyramid
the successive terms of sequences of dots-numbers are triangular numbers that
have been mentioned before:
n ( n+1 )
1 ,3 ,6 , 10 , … , ,…
2
Therefore, triangular pyramidal numbers are the sum of successive triangular
numbers:
1, 4, 10, 20, ...
as it is shown in the Figure 7. The formulae for counting the sums of n successive
triangular numbers starting from 1 is:

Figure 7 Figure 8

n ( n+1 ) n ( n+ 1 )( n+ 2 )
1+3+6+ …+ = .
2 1 ∙2 ∙ 3

The latter formula enables counting the number of pebbles in a triangular pyramid
in terms of its height. Meaning, if the height of a pyramid is n it follows that it has
n layers that are successive triangular numbers. So the number of dots - pebbles is
given by the previous formulae.
Similarly, square pyramidal numbers are generated by a sequence of square
numbers
1, 4, 9, … , n2
so the square pyramidal numbers are the sums of successive square numbers
1, 5, 14, 30, . . . (Figure 8).
The number of dots in square pyramid could be summed and the formulae is

n ( n+1 ) (2 n+1 )
.
1 ∙2 ∙ 3
This was used for counting numbers of cannonballs when they were accumulated
in a form of a pyramid. Knowing both the formulae and the height of the pyramid
enabled counting the number of cannonballs easily. Accumulating ammunition into
a shape of a pyramid started in the XVI century. Figures 9, 10 and 11 are the
examples.

Figure 9 Figure 10
Pyramid made of cannonballs Pyramid made of cannonballs
from Strasbourg from San Juan, Puerto Rico

Figure 11
Pyramid made of cannonballs in Sussex
Sequence of Fibonacci numbers

Many other properties of various sequences can be achieved by their geometrical

representation.

There are a few examples, some of which being: Fibonacci sequence and the sum
of cubes of successive natural numbers.

Fibonacci sequence is a sequence that is defined with:

a1  a2  1
an  an 1  an 2 , for n  3

so its terms are:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, ...

The squares of Fibonacci numbers placed next to each other in the same direction
(clock wise or anti-clock wise) form a rectangle whose area equals to the product
of the last and the next Fibonacci number.

12  12  1  2 ,

12  12  22  2  3 ,

12  12  22  32  3  5 , …,

12  12  22  32  ...  f n  f n  f n1

Figure 12

Cubes of natural numbers

Given the sequence of cubes of natural

numbers:
13 , 23 , 33 , ... , n3 .
 The idea for making a sum of all terms of the sequence is to sum squares, not
cubes. The easiest way to explain this is by using geometry. The Figure 13 shows
the way of summing those squares. There are 1 square of side 1, 2 squares of side
2, 3 squares of side 3 etc. As it can be seen in the picture, odd numbers fit
perfectly together, but even numbers have an overlapping section which is
translated to fill the figure to a full square. Thus they form a square of a side whose
length is a sum of the natural numbers sequence. Therefore, the formulae is
13 +23 +33 +…+ n3=( 1+2+3+…+ n )2
Figure 13
Now we can notice that the right side of the equation is the same as the
formulae of triangular numbers. Knowing that, we get the next formulae:
2
n ( n+1 )
13 +23 +33 +…+ n3= ( 2 )
Principle of mathematical induction

In contemporary algebra and calculus courses (here we come to calculus

again) properties of number sequences are proved by the principal of mathematical
induction. Mathematical induction is a technique for proving a statement, a
theorem, or a formulae, that is asserted about every natural number.

The principle is:

If
(1) a statement is true for number n = 1;
and
(2) if the truth of the statement for n = k implies the truth of the statement for
its successor n = k + 1 for all natural numbers k
then, the statement is true for all natural numbers.

It means that to prove a statement by induction, we must prove two steps: (1) and
(2), as it is mentioned above. For, when a statement is true for n = 1, then
according to step (2), it will also be true for 2. But that implies that it will be true
for 3; which implies it will be true for 4. And so on. Thus, it will be true for any
natural number.
It is also important to notice that both parts are necessary, because there must be a
starting number for which the statement is valid. Otherwise, the second conditional
statement could be true even when the statement itself is not true. It refers to a
property of a conditional statement, that if both, a hypothesis and a conclusion are
not valid, the conditional statement itself is true. For example: If the Danube was in
Brazil, then the Danube would be a South-American river.
To demonstrate the principle of mathematical induction, let us prove the formulae

1+3+5+ …+ ( 2 n−1 )=n2

Step (1)
Formulae is true for n = 1, because the left sum is reduced to the first addend which
is 1, and the right side is equal to a square of 1, that is 1 again.
Step (2)
The statement that is to prove is

1  3  5  ...   2n  1  n 2  1  3  5  ...   2 n  1   n  1
2

                       
hypothesis formulae that is to prove according to the hypothesis

1  3  5  ...   2n  1
In the sum the term preceding the last one is 2n-1.
Therefore, the sum is
1  3  5  ...   2n  1   2n  1  n 2  2n  1   n  1
2

        
n 2 according to hypothesis .

So, the formulae is valid for all natural numbers n.

Finally, let us look back to the Pythagorean dot-proof, once again shown in the
picture below.

Figure 13
Looks familiar, right? In the ancient proof by dots, pebbles or 'calculi', the very
essence of induction was not lost. It was actually embodied in it.
Should this be a valid reason for the whole mathematical discipline to be named
after a common pebble - 'calculus'? We think it should!

References

[1] Heath, Thomas, A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume I, From Thales to

Euclid, Dover Publications, Inc., New York (1981.)

[2] Hogben, Lanselot, Stvaranje matematike, Vuk Karadžić, Beograd (1972.)

[3] http://www.geogebra.org/

[4] http:// www.mathworld.wolfram.com/