Pascal's Arithmetical Triangle: Pascal's Arithmetical Triangle: The Story of a Mathematical Idea (Dover Books on Mathematics)

by Edwardsm, A W F

ISBN: 9780486832791

Published: 2019-06-12

"An impressive culmination of meticulous research into original sources, this definitive study constitutes the first full-length history of the Arithmetic Triangle." — Mathematics of Computation Pascal's Arithmetical Triangle was named for the seventeenth-century French philosopher/mathematician Blaise Pascal, though he did not invent it. A never-ending equilateral triangle of numbers that follow the rule of adding the two numbers above to get the number below, it appears much earlier in the literature of Hindu and Arabic mathematics and continues to fascinate Western mathematicians. Two sides are comprised of "all 1s," and because the triangle is infinite, there is no "bottom side." This book by A. W. F. Edwards, Professor of Biometry at the University of Cambridge, explores Pascal's Arithmetical Triangle and the way it has been studied, enjoyed, and used by mathematicians throughout history. "A fascinating book...giving new insights into the early history of probability theory...