Pascal's odd rows

These are the first few rows of Pascal's triangle :

Each number is derived by adding up the two numbers just above it (and to the left and right) in the previous row. (The numbers on the ends remain 1).

Of the first 1000 rows, as labeled above, how many of them contain all odd numbers?


Image credit: http://www.daviddarling.info/


The answer is 10.

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1 solution

Geoff Pilling
Nov 22, 2016

Take a look at this figure of Pascal's triangle:

All the even/odd numbers have been shaded differently, and you can see that all the rows 2 n ( n 0 ) 2^n (n\geq 0) have all odd numbers, and the others do not. Therefore we have 10 \boxed{10} rows with all odd numbers that are less than 1000 1000 , namely rows 2 0 , 2 1 , 2 2 , . . . 2 9 2^0, 2^1, 2^2, ... 2^9 .

For those who aren't convinced by the drawing, here is my attempt at a proof:

By Lucas' theorem we know that ( 2 k 1 m ) \binom{2^k-1}{m} is always odd, since 2 k 1 2^k-1 is all 1s when written in binary. And this corresponds to the rows mentioned above.

Therefore we know that all the rows mentioned above ( 2 0 2 9 2^0\rightarrow 2^9 ) only contain odd numbers. Since they contain odd numbers, that means that the row directly underneath them will be all even numbers (except for the two 1's at the end). So, foreach, n n , row 2 n + 1 2^n + 1 will contain 2 n 1 2^n -1 even numbers. This means that the following 2 n 2 2^n-2 rows will also contain even numbers, which then accounts for all rows. Therefore the rows 2 n 2^n (for n=0 to 9) are in fact the only rows containing all odd numbers.

QED


Image credit: http://www.texample.net/

Hmm that triangle pattern of blue numbers... will that be repetitive if you add many rows? Just wondering

Peter van der Linden - 4 years, 6 months ago

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Yes, it will! In fact, it will form a perfect Sierpinski triangle ! :)

Geoff Pilling - 4 years, 6 months ago

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Awash tnx it looked familiar!

Peter van der Linden - 4 years, 6 months ago

It's better to provide the proof.

Hint: : Lucas' theorem .

Pi Han Goh - 4 years, 6 months ago

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Added above

Geoff Pilling - 4 years, 6 months ago

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