MathDB
Rosemonde is stacking spheres to make 2 types of pyramids

Source: Canada Repêchage 2019/2 CMOQR

March 1, 2020
spherepyramidEquilateralcombinatorial geometrycombinatorics

Problem Statement

Rosemonde is stacking spheres to make pyramids. She constructs two types of pyramids SnS_n and TnT_n. The pyramid SnS_n has nn layers, where the top layer is a single sphere and the ithi^{th} layer is an i×i\times i square grid of spheres for each 2in2 \le i \le n. Similarly, the pyramid TnT_n has nn layers where the top layer is a single sphere and the ithi^{th} layer is i(i+1)2\frac{i(i+1)}{2} spheres arranged into an equilateral triangle for each 2in2 \le i \le n.