Definition:Pentagonal Number

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Definition

Pentagonal numbers are those denumerating a collection of objects which can be arranged in the form of a regular pentagon.


They can be denoted:

$P_1, P_2, P_3, \ldots$


Definition 1

$P_n = \begin{cases} 0 & : n = 0 \\ P_{n - 1} + 3 n - 2 & : n > 0 \end{cases}$


Definition 2

$\ds P_n = \sum_{i \mathop = 1}^n \paren {3 i - 2} = 1 + 4 + \cdots + \paren {3 \paren {n - 1} - 2} + \paren {3 n - 2}$


Definition 3

$\forall n \in \N: P_n = \map P {5, n} = \begin {cases} 0 & : n = 0 \\ \map P {5, n - 1} + 3 \paren {n - 1} + 1 & : n > 0 \end {cases}$

where $\map P {k, n}$ denotes the $k$-gonal numbers.


Examples of Pentagonal Numbers

The first few pentagonal numbers are as follows:


PentagonNumbers.png


Sequence of Pentagonal Numbers

The sequence of pentagonal numbers, for $n \in \Z_{\ge 0}$, begins:

$0, 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, 51, 70, 92, 117, 145, 176, \ldots$


Also known as

Pentagonal numbers are also known as pentagon numbers.

Or we can just say that a number is pentagonal.


Also see

  • Results about pentagonal numbers can be found here.


Sources