For my first three years of teaching I used the original CPM series, and in their Algebra (Math 1) text they presented students with three key number sequences: the square numbers, the rectangular numbers, and the triangular numbers. These sequences appear so frequently that knowing and understanding their generalizations can be helpful when the sequences appear explicitly or when they are embedded in the foundation of another pattern.
The square number pattern, shown below, is the simplest of the three patterns, although students who are struggling to move beyond a recursive view of the pattern are likely to describe the sequence as "adding the next consecutive odd number." Because of this, the square numbers become a great example for students to see the importance of moving beyond recursive descriptions of patterns and towards expressions that yield the number of tiles for any figure.
The rectangular numbers are the next sequence in the progression of patterns. Instead of the expression
(or 
) as with square numbers, the rectangular numbers use 
for one dimension.
But in fact, the triangular numbers can be seen as half of each rectangular number. This means we can modify the rectangular number expression and represent triangular numbers using
.
Our class was presented with a problem known as the "Skeleton Tower," borrowed from http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/nise/Publications/Briefs/Vol_2_No_1/. I've attempted to re-illustrate the tower in the figure below:
On the other hand, if a student were familiar with the power of the square, rectangular, and triangular numbers, they may spatially reason the tower to be a single column of blocks of height
, surrounded by four "wings," each in the pattern of the triangular numbers. Because the height of each triangular wing is 
, not , an adjustment to the triangular number expression must be made, giving us a new expression of 
to describe each of the tower's wings. All together, we can express the number of blocks in a skeleton tower of height as follows:
If a student were to rewrite this expression as
, they might visualize the tower as rearranged with two opposite wings removed and each stacked on top of the remaining wings, making a rectangular shape with height and width 
. Remember, the triangular wings were undersized to begin with; the only reason the width is not 
is because the center column remains in the middle. Here is the pattern "flattened," which hints at solutions using both the overall dimensions (as just discussed) or using the rectangular numbers plus a center column:
The progression through the square, rectangular, and triangular numbers certainly makes the skeleton tower more approachable. But what if we build a tower that is more complex? What if our three fundamental number sequences are more hidden, and spatial "flattening" strategies are less apparent? Below is one such possible tower, an extension of the skeleton tower.
First, unlike the skeleton tower, this shape is much closer to a true pyramid, so it was difficult to imagine it losing its 3-dimensional character no matter how many blocks were rearranged. (I tried variations of the formula for the volume of a pyramid,
, with no success, but that did make me hypothesize that thirds of a cube could be involved in the correct generalization.) My second clue that the generalized expression was cubic was seen in the difference between the terms of the sequence (which I had to extend to a 5th figure):
(UPDATE: See update below for ways I could/should have found the generalized form.)
With no real hope of deriving the generalized expression via non-mechanical means, I gave up and used my calculator to find a cubic regression. The generalized expression for this second cube stack is
. (The thirds are there, as I suspected, although that was far more luck than intuition.) Even with this expression I still can't imagine a physical restacking of cubes (or fractions of cubes) that would lead a student to this result, nor would knowledge of square, rectangular, and triangular numbers.I find these five patterns intriguing for a number of reasons. First, we go from very basic to very difficult in a quick but logical way. The skeleton tower is a good choice because it incorporates the triangular and rectangular patterns in its solution, and it adds another dimension (literally and figuratively) that suggests new problem-solving approaches, including 3-dimensional spatial reasoning. As for my pyramid-like tower, I like that it re-establishes a disequilibrium for students (and myself). For Algebra 1 students that aren't ready for quadratic regression, being exposed to such a complex pattern might provide some motivation and could be revisited either later in the course or in Algebra 2. It might also be an example I give to students for a "design-your-own" pattern workshop, where students manipulate different permutations of the square, rectangular, and triangular patterns in 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes.
UPDATE (2010.07.02): With great thanks to two friends/followers, I have two more methods of finding the generalization for my pyramidial stack of blocks.
@msmathaddict sent a tweet a link to the Dr. Math portion of the Math Forum that filled in my missing step from my pattern of differences. Now that I've seen the solution it seems obvious, but we can use a system of equations to devise the correct degree equation we're looking for.
My third differences reached a constant, so I knew the equation describing the equation would be third degree. Third degree (cubic) equations are generalized in this form:
From my original figures and table I had four known
pairs: (1,1), (2,6), (3,19), and (4,44). Substituting into the generic cubic form, I can create a system of four equations with four variables:
Simplified, the system becomes:
The system might be most easily solved using matrices (because they are easily entered and manipulated in most graphing calculators):
Solving for
, we get 
, so the general cubic becomes 
.The second method for deriving the forumla for my pyramidial stack of blocks was sent to me by my friend Andrew Drenner. He opted to use a summation property to summarize the recursive nature of adding increasingly larger layers. He explains:
In a given horizontal slice of the pyramid there iscubes of height
. Thus, the problem of finding the total blocks (
) in a pyramid
tall becomes
.
Given that the summation sequence for squares is
,
