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'Triangles Within Pentagons' printed from https://nrich.maths.org/
Curt from Reigate College started by
getting a general formula for Triangle numbers
$T_n = 1 + 2 + 3+ . . . +(n-1) + n$
$T_n = n + (n-1) + . . . + 3+2+1$
The second line is just a repeat of the first but with the terms in
reverse order.
Then adding the two lines the right hand side becomes $n$ lots of
$n+1$
So $2T_n=n(n+1)$ and since everything was added in twice,
$T_n=\frac{n(n+1)}{2}$.
David from Sha Tin College used a known
general result for any progression that steps up by a fixed amount
term on term
$\frac{n}{2}(2a+(n-1)d)$
where n is the number of terms, a is the starting term and d is
that step up.
If the step up is equal to 1, and the start value is also 1, you
can see that this is the same result as Curt demonstrated.
Continuing with the Pentagonal numbers
The diagram shows $P_4=3T_3+4$
And in general $P_n=3T_{n-1}+n$
Now using the result for $T_n$ to see $P_n$ in terms of $n$
$P_n=\frac{3n(n-1)}{2}+n$
We now have to show that three times that result is a triangle
number
$3P_n=3[\frac{3n(n-1)+2n}{2}]$ and is the same as
$3[\frac{3n^2-n}{2}]$
or
$\frac{3n(3n-1)}{2}$
And that's the same as $T_{3n-1}$ the required result.