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Subject: 
Re: Pyramids
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Fri, 29 Jan 1999 04:24:44 GMT
Viewed: 
870 times
  
For any of you interested, here's how I came up with the slopes formula:

Layer 1 and 2 have no 2x2 slopes, they start at layer 3.
Layer 3 has 4, layer 4 has 8, 5 has 12, etc. (add 4 to each layer).
This gives the series: sum(0,0,4,8,12, ... ,4(n-1),4n) for layers 1 through n.
Since we can ignore layers 1 and 2 we can rewrite this as:
  sum(4,8,12, ... ,4(n-3),4(n-2))
Factoring out 4: 4*sum(1,2,3, ... ,n-3,n-2)
The series sum(1,2,3,4,...,n-1,n) equals (n(n+1))/2, and plugging in our
series where n=n-2 we get:
4(n-2((n-2)+1))/2 = 2((n-2)(n-1) = 2(n^2-3n+2) = 2n^2-6n+4

Rob (who likes recreational mathematics)

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 02:24:53 GMT, "Janet Zorn" <lighthouse@bonzai.net> wrote:

Great job!

You knew all that algebra and geometry had to be good for something
someday.

Sure enough - for building toys.

Rob Farver wrote in message <36b1be61.7834646@lugnet.com>...

:Incidentally, while writing Tom on this subject today I came up with
the
:following formulas for figuring out how many slopes it takes to build
:a pyramid (assuming all 2x2 slopes as Tom is using):
:
:For any pyramid of height 'n' where (n>2),
:
:1x2 tri-faced slope  -          2
:2x2 corner slope     -       4n-4 or 4(n-1)   <-- 2nx2n baseplate
:2x2 slope            -  2n^2-6n+4
:Total pieces         -  2n^2-2n+2





+-------------------------------------------+
|  Rob Farver - rfarver@rcn.com             |
http://www.farver.com/lego/              |
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/rfarver  |
+-------------------------------------------+



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Pyramids
 
Great job! You knew all that algebra and geometry had to be good for something someday. Sure enough - for building toys. Rob Farver wrote in message <36b1be61.7834646@lu...et.com>... :Incidentally, while writing Tom on this subject today I came up (...) (26 years ago, 29-Jan-99, to lugnet.general)

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