Pythagorean number patterns - from the idea to the proof
Maths circle meeting on 19 November 2025 (18-21 h)
Room and time: virtual/online with the video conferencing software Zoom (Paderborn University campus licence) from 10:00 to 13:00 (on Sat 15 Nov 2025) or 18:00 to 21:00 (on Wed 19 Nov 2025)
Leader of the workshop: Dr. Kerstin Hesse
Description: Description: From the film "Measuring the World" about the natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, you may be familiar with the question of what the value of the sum 1+2+...+n is for any natural number n. Carl Friedrich Gauss solved this problem as a young student in a tremendously innovative way. But what is actually the value of the sums 12+22+...+n2 and 13+23+...+n3? We want to answer this and similar questions in this maths circle meeting by considering the values of such sums using Pythagorean number patterns. We will then familiarise ourselves with the principle of complete induction, which can be used to elegantly prove such summation formulae for any natural number n.
Website with registration form: math.uni-paderborn.de/mathezirkel/
