## Exploring induction and the pentagonal numbers

Yesterday we did a fun project based on this tweet by James Tanton:

That project is here:

Exploring a neat problem from James Tanton

During the project yesterday we touched on mathematical induction and also on the pengatonal numbers. Today I wanted to revisit those ideas with slightly more depth.

We started with a quick review of yesterday’s project:

Now we looked at a mathematical induction proof. The example here is:

$1 + 3 + 5 + \ldots + (2n - 1) = n^2$

(the nearly camera ran out of batteries, that’s why this part is split into two videos)

Here’s the 2nd part of the induction proof after solving the battery problem:

To wrap up the project we went to the living room to build some shapes with our Zometool set. The Zome shapes really helped the boys make the connection between the numbers and geometry.

The boys really liked this project. In fact, my younger son spent the 30 min after we finished making the decagonal numbers 🙂