Keith Vetter 2003-01-26
Start with an equilateral triangle then draw lines connecting the midpoints of each side. Now how many triangles are there? Answer: 5 -- three small "up" triangles, one "down" triangle plus the outer, larger triangles. Repeat the subdivision on all the smaller triangles and now how many triangles are there?
Counting the number of triangles in this type of figure is an old puzzle. Finding a general formula is even trickier.
This little program is a visualization of this problem. I found it while cleaning up my hard drive and I thought I'd share it here.
This is sequence A002717 on the On-line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. It has the closed for form: floor(n * (n+2) * (2n + 1) / 8)
##+########################################################################## # # triags -- Draws nested triangles and displays the total number of # triangles there are and also shows how many triangles of each size. # # Keith Vetter Jun 24, 1998 - initial revision # ##+########################################################################## # # DoDisplay -- puts up our interface # proc DoDisplay {} { global w h canvas .c -width $w -height $h -bd 2 -relief ridge frame .bottom scale .s -orient h -from 1 -to 50 -command DrawTriangles -showvalue 0 \ -variable S(n) -highlightthickness 0 set ::S(n) 3 focus .s label .lcntU -text "Up triangles: " label .lcntD -text "Down triangles: " label .lcntT -text "Total triangles: " label .cntU -textvariable S(up) label .cntD -textvariable S(down) label .cntT -textvariable S(total) catch {image create photo ::img::blank -width 1 -height 1} button .about -image ::img::blank -highlightthickness 0 -command { tk_messageBox -title "About" -message "by Keith Vetter\nJanuary, 2003"} pack .c -side top -fill both -expand 1 place .s -in .c -x 10 -y 5 -anchor nw pack .bottom -side bottom -fill x grid .lcntU .cntU -in .bottom grid .lcntD .cntD -in .bottom grid .lcntT .cntT -in .bottom grid configure .lcntU .lcntD .lcntT -sticky e grid configure .cntU .cntD .cntT -sticky w grid columnconfigure .bottom 1 -weight 1 place .about -in .c -relx 1 -rely 1 -anchor se update bind . <Configure> {triag $S(n)} } ##+########################################################################## # # DrawTriangles -- called when the number of sides changes. # proc DrawTriangles {n} { global S CNT .s config -label "Sides: $n" triag $n set S(up) [CountUp $n] set S(down) [CountDown $n] set S(total) [expr {$CNT(up) + $CNT(down)}] } ##+########################################################################## # # triag -- draws an N sided triangle # proc triag {n} { global w h alt len set w [winfo width .c] set h [winfo height .c] set alt [expr {($h - 20.0) / $n}] ;# Scale to fit window set len [expr {($w - 20.0) / $n}] .c delete all set b [GetBottom $n] ;# Bottom coords set l [GetLeft $n] ;# Left side coords set r [GetRight $n] ;# Right side coords foreach {x1 y1} $l {x2 y2} $r { ;# Parallel to bottom .c create line $x1 $y1 $x2 $y2 -width 2 } foreach {x1 y1} $b {x2 y2} $r { ;# Parallel to left side .c create line $x1 $y1 $x2 $y2 -width 2 } foreach {x1 y1} [reverse $b] {x2 y2} $l { ;# Parallel to right side .c create line $x1 $y1 $x2 $y2 -width 2 } } ##+########################################################################## # # GetXY -- returns x,y coordinates for this triangle # proc GetXY {row col} { global w len alt set y [expr {round(10 + $row * $alt)}] set x [expr {round($w/2.0 + $len * ($col - $row / 2.0))}] return [list $x $y] } ##+########################################################################## # # GetBottom -- returns coordinates of all bottom side vertices # proc GetBottom {n} { for {set c 0} {$c <= $n} {incr c} { eval lappend result [GetXY $n $c] } return $result } ##+########################################################################## # # GetLeft -- returns coordinates of all left side vertices # proc GetLeft {n} { for {set r 0} {$r <= $n} {incr r} { eval lappend result [GetXY $r 0] } return $result } ##+########################################################################## # # GetRight -- returns coordinates of all right side vertices # proc GetRight {n} { for {set r 0} {$r <= $n} {incr r} { eval lappend result [GetXY $r $r] } return $result } ##+########################################################################## # # reverse -- reverses a list (by pairs) # proc reverse {l} { set r "" foreach {x y} $l { set r "$x $y $r" } return $r } ##+########################################################################## # # CountUp -- counts how many upright triangles there are. # proc CountUp {n} { global CNT set CNT(up) 0 ;# Reset all values to zero for {set i 1} {$i <= $n} {incr i} { set CNT(up,$i) 0 } for {set row 0} {$row < $n} {incr row} { set size 1 set num [expr {$n - $row}] ;# How many size 1 triangles while {$num > 0} { incr CNT(up,$size) $num incr CNT(up) $num incr num -1 ;# One less triangle at size+1 incr size } } set v "$CNT(up): " for {set i 1} {$i <= $n && $CNT(up,$i) > 0} {incr i} { append v "$CNT(up,$i) " } return $v } ##+########################################################################## # # CountDown -- same as count but for upside down triangles # proc CountDown {n} { global CNT set CNT(down) 0 ;# Reset all values to zero for {set i 1} {$i <= $n} {incr i} { set CNT(down,$i) 0 } for {set row 0} {$row < $n-1} {incr row} { set size 1 set num [expr {$n - $row - 1}] ;# How many size 1 triangles while {$num > 0} { incr CNT(down,$size) $num incr CNT(down) $num incr num -2 ;# Two less triangles at size+1 incr size } } set v "$CNT(down): " for {set i 1} {$i <= $n && $CNT(down,$i) > 0} {incr i} { append v "$CNT(down,$i) " } return $v } set w 276 set h 276 DoDisplay update wm geom . [wm geom .] ;# Keeps window from growing .c config -width 0 -height 0 ;# Better resizing behavior
uniquename 2013jul29
This code could use an image to show what it produces:
(Thanks to 'gnome-screenshot', 'mtpaint', and ImageMagick 'convert' on Linux for, respectively, capturing the image to a PNG file, cropping the image, and converting the PNG file to a JPEG file that was about 8 times smaller. Thanks to FOSS developers everywhere.)
To capture this image, I changed the initial default of 3 levels of triangles to 10.