PASCAL’S

TRI NGLE
A P R E S E N TAT I O N
P re p a re d b y :
Benjie S. Gonzales Jr.
 CO
C ON
NTTEEN
NTT
HISTORY COMBINATION
1 A. Brief History of Pascal’s Triangle
5 A. How to use the Pascal’s Triangle to
calculate combinations

DEFINITION
A. Definition of Pascal’s Triangle DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF
2 B. Entry in the nth row and kth column of
PASCAL’S TRIANGLE
Pascal's triangle A. Addition of the rows
6 B. Prime numbers in the triangle
C. Fibonacci Sequence in the Triangle
CONSTRUCTION
3 A. How to make the Pascal’s Triangle

DIFFERENT PROPERTIES OF
PASCAL’S TRIANGLE
BINOMIAL EXPANSION
A. How to determine the
7 A. Properties that can be found in the
4 coefficients of binomials using the triangle
Pascal’s Triangle
 H I S T O RY

• The pattern of numbers that forms Pascal's triangle was known

well before Pascal's time.
• Centuries before, discussion of the numbers
R Ehad arisen in the context of Indian studies
T U of combinatorics and of binomial numbers
P I C onu
) and the Greeks' study of figurate numbers.

U T (D e pe
nd
s

P
H I S T O RY
• From later commentary, it appears
that the binomial coefficients and
the additive formula for generating
them, were known to Pingala in or
before the 2nd century BC.
 H I S T O RY

It was later repeated by the

Persian poet-astronomer-
mathematician Omar Khayyám
(1048–1131); thus the triangle is
also referred to as the Khayyam
triangle in Iran
 H I S T O RY

मेरु प्रस्तार(Meru Prastaara) as used in indian manuscripts, derived from 

Pingala's formulae. Manuscript from Raghunath Library J&K; 755 AD
 H I S T O RY
Several theorems related to the
triangle were known, including
the binomial theorem.
Khayyam used a method of
finding nth roots based on the
binomial expansion, and
therefore on the binomial
coefficients.
 H I S T O RY

Pascal's triangle was known in China

in the early 11th century through the
work of the Chinese
mathematician Jia Xian (1010–
1070).
H I S T O RY

In the 13th century, Yang

Hui (1238–1298) presented the
triangle and hence it is still
called Yang Hui's
triangle in China.
 H I S T O RY

In the west, the binomial

coefficients were calculated
by Gersonides in the early 14th
century, using the multiplicative
formula for them.
H I S T O RY

In 1655, Pascal collected several results

then known about the triangle, and
employed them to solve problems
in probability theory.
 H I S T O RY
The triangle was later named
after Pascal by Pierre
Raymond de
Montmort and Abraham de
Moivre (1730) who called it
"Triangulum Arithmeticum
PASCALIANUM" (Latin:
Pascal's Arithmetic Triangle),
which became the modern
Western name.

 
 DEFINITION

Pascal’s triangle
a triangular arrangement of numbers
that gives the coefficients in the
expansion of any binomial expression,
such as (x + y) n.
 CONSTRUCTION
Begin by placing a 1 at the top center of a piece of paper. The next row down
of the triangle is constructed by summing adjacent elements in the previous
row. Because there is nothing next to the 1 in the top row, the adjacent
elements are considered to be 0:

0 1 0
+ +
1 1
 CONSTRUCTION
This process is repeated to produce each subsequent row:

1
0 1 1 0
+ + +
1 2 1
 CONSTRUCTION
1
1 1
This can be repeated
indefinitely; Pascal's triangle has 0 1 2 1 0
an infinite number of rows: + + + +
1 3 3 1
 CONSTRUCTION
1
1 1
This can be repeated
indefinitely; Pascal's triangle has 1 2 1
an infinite number of rows:
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
 CONSTRUCTION
1
1 1
This can be repeated
indefinitely; Pascal's triangle has 1 2 1
an infinite number of rows:
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1
 CONSTRUCTION
1
1 1
This can be repeated
indefinitely; Pascal's triangle has 1 2 1
an infinite number of rows:
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1
 BINOMIAL THEOREM
Consider the following expanded powers of (a + b)n, where a + b is any
binomial and n is a whole number. Look for patterns.

1. There is one more

term than the power of
the exponent, n. That
is, there are terms in
the expansion of (a +
b)n.
 BINOMIAL THEOREM

2. In each term, the sum of the

exponents is n, the power to
which the binomial is raised.

3. The exponents of a start with n, the power of the binomial, and decrease to
0. The last term has no factor of a. The first term has no factor of b, so powers
of b start with 0 and increase to n.
 BINOMIAL THEOREM
4. The coefficients start at 1 and increase through certain values about
"half"-way and then decrease through these same values back to 1.

1
FOR EXAMPLE
1 1
(x + y) 0 = 1
1 2 1
(x + y) 3 = 1x3+3x2y+3xy2+1y3 3 3 1
1
1 4 6 4 1
(x + y) = 5

(1x5+5x4y+10x3y2+10x2y3 1 5 10 10 5 1
+5x4y+1y5) 1 6 15 20 15 6 1
 C O M B I N AT I O N S
A second useful application of Pascal's triangle
is in the calculation of combinations.

For example, the number of combinations

of n things taken k at a time
(called n choose k) can be
found by the equation.
 C O M B I N AT I O N S
The top row in Pascal’s Triangle is row zero, and the first item in
 

any row (the 1s) are item zero in that row. For example, let’s sat
we wanted to find C4.

Look in Row 6, at item number 4. the answer is 15.

 C O M B I N AT I O N S
Suppose a basketball team has 10 players and wants to know how many ways there are
of selecting 8. The answer is entry 8 in row 10, which is 45; that is, 10 choose 8 is 45.

Row
Number

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

1)Addition of the Rows:  1

1 1
1 2 1
One of the interesting
1 3 3 1
properties of the
triangle is that the sum 1 4 6 4 1
of numbers in a row is 1 5 10 10 5 1
equal to 2n
1 6 15 20 15 6 1
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

1)Addition of the 1 = 1 = 20
Rows:  1 + 1 = 2 = 21
1 + 2 + 1 = 4 = 22
1 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 8 = 23
1 +4 + 6 +4 +1
= 16 = 24
1 + 5 +10+10+ 5 + 1 = 32 = 25
1 + 6 +15+ + 15+ 6 + = 64 = 26
20 1
1 + 7 +21+ + +21+ 7 +
35 35 1 = 128 = 27
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E
2) Prime Numbers in the
Triangle: 
• Another pattern visible in the triangle
deals with prime numbers.
• If a row starts with a prime number or is
a prime numbered row, all the numbers
that are in that row (not counting the 1’s)
are divisible by that prime.
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E
2) Prime Numbers in the
Triangle: 
• If we look at row 5 (1 5 10 10
51), we can see that 5 and 10 are
divisible by 5.

• The same with the row 7, all

numbers within the row except 1
are divisible by 7
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E
2) Prime Numbers in the
Triangle: 

• However, for a composite

numbered row, such as row
8 (1 8 28 56 70 56 28 8 1),
28 and 70 are not divisible
by 8.
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

3) Fibonacci Sequence in the 1

1 1 1
Triangle: 1
By adding the numbers in the 1 2 1
diagonals of the Pascal triangle
3 3 1
2
the Fibonacci sequence can be
1
1
3
obtained as seen in the figure 1 4 6 4
given below.
1
5
1 5 10 10 5
1
8
1 6 15 20 15 6
1
13
1 7 21 35 35 21 7
2
 PAT T E R N S
I N T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

3) Fibonacci
Sequence in the
Triangle:
 P R O P E RT I E S
O F T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

• Each number is the sum of the

1
two numbers above it. 0 1 1 0
+ + +
1 2 1

• The triangle is symmetric.

 P R O P E RT I E S
O F T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

• The first diagonal shows the

counting numbers.

• The outside numbers are

all 1.
 P R O P E RT I E S
O F T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

• The sums of the rows 1 = 1 = 20

give the powers of 2. 1 + 1 = 2 = 21
1 + 2 + 1 = 4 = 22
• Each row gives 1 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 8 = 23
the digits of the 1 +4 + 6 +4 +1
= 16 = 24
powers of 11.
1 + 5 +10+10+ 5 + 1 = 32 = 25
1 + 6 +15+ + 15+ 6 + = 64 = 26
20 1
1 + 7 +21+ + +21+ 7 +
35 35 1 = 128 = 27
 P R O P E RT I E S
O F T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

• The sums of the rows 1 =1=

give the powers of 2. 11
1 + 1 = 11 = 111
0

1 + 2 + 1 = 121 = 112
• Each row gives 1 + 3 + 3 + 1 = 1331 = 113
the digits of the 1 +4 + 6 +4 +1
= 14641 = 114
powers of 11.
1 + 5 +10+10+ 5 + 1 = 161051 = 115

But what happens with 115 ? Simple! The digits just

overlap, like this:
 P R O P E RT I E S
O F T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E

• Each entry is an appropriate

“choose number.”

• And those are the “binomial

coefficients.”
 P R O P E RT I E S
O F T H E PA S C A L T R I A N G L E
 The Fibonacci numbers are in
there along diagonals.
 REFERENCES

https://www.britannica.com/science/Pascals-triangle
https://byjus.com/maths/pascals-triangle/
https://brilliant.org/wiki/pascals-triangle/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pascal%27s_triangle
https://www.math10.com/en/algebra/probabilities/binomial-
theorem/binomial-theorem.html
https://www.statisticshowto.com/pascals-triangle/
https://www.mathsisfun.com/pascals-triangle.html