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I was learning the derivatives and I remembered Pascal's triangle and I discover that I can write it with derivatives without having to draw it.

Let's see Pascal's triangle:

enter image description here

Any row can be written using derivatives, per example the $6th$ row.

The algorithm is like this: You start with $x^n$ where $n =$ Number of row.

And every time you calculate the derivative, you divide that same derivative into the number of times you've derived.

I'll write the $5th$ row:

$x^5$,

1° derivative: $\frac {d}{dx}x^5 = \frac{5x^4}{1}$ ( I Divide in $1$ because is the first derivative) Here i get the first term of Pascal's triangle.

2° derivative: $\frac {d}{dx}5x^4 = \frac{20x^3}{2} = 10x^3$ Here i get the second term of Pascal's triangle.

3° derivative: $\frac {d}{dx}10x^3 = \frac{30x^2}{3} = 10x^2$ Here i get the third term of Pascal's triangle.

4° derivative: $\frac {d}{dx}10x^2 = \frac{20x}{4} = 5x$ Here i get the four term of Pascal's triangle.

In fact, writing algebraically and with a little more work I have come to another formula more complex:

$A_k = \frac{P^{(k-1)* n! * (rx)^{(n-k+1)}}}{(n-k+1)! * (k - 1) !}$

With which I can get any term from a binomial of the form $(rx + p)^n$

Although, I do not think it works much, but I found it interesting.

And I would like to know why this happens, thank you very much.

Bernard
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1 Answers1

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You are finding $\binom n{k+1}$ from $\binom n{k}$

Note that $$\binom n{k+1} = \binom n{k} \frac {(n-k)}{(k+1)}$$ and that is what you are doing to derivatives of $x^n$ to get your terms.