# Blog Post 2

$$1$$ $$\underline{\text{Pascal's Triangle}}$$ In discrete mathematics, Pascal’s triangle is the arrangement of binomial coefficients in such a way that a triangle is formed. Although such a pattern was studied centuries before his time, we refer to Pascal’s triangle in relation to Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician. The triangle was originally developed by the ancient Chinese, but Pascal was the first person to discover the importance of all of the patterns that occur within it. His work allegedly stemmed from the popularity of gambling. After considering a question asked to him about gambling with dice, Pascal’s $$\textit{Arithmetical Triangle}$$ resulted.

The triangle is created by starting at the top, row $$0$$, with the number $$1$$. Each row afterwards begins and ends with $$1$$ and the pattern follows that as you move through the row, you add the number above and to the left with the number above and to the right for any given position. A portion of Pascal’s triangle is shown below.

Shown (above) is a part of Pascal’s triangle.

Notice that this illustrates how one can use the previous row to find the next values in the figure. The question then arises of how we would compute the values that lie in very large positions in the triangle. Fortunately, there is a formula from combinations for working out the value at any place in Pascal’s triangle. This formula is the familiar “$$n$$ choose $$k$$,” where $$n$$ is the number of the row and $$k$$ is the position in that row.