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Conference rusure::math

Title:Mathematics at DEC
Moderator:RUSURE::EDP
Created:Mon Feb 03 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2083
Total number of notes:14613

343.0. "Heronian triangles consec sides" by TOOLS::STAN () Wed Oct 09 1985 19:45

Everyone knows that a 3-4-5 triangle has area 6 and that
a 13-14-15 triangle has area 84.  I discovered that a 193-194-195
triangle has area 16296.

Find all triangles with integral area whose sides are consecutive integers.
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343.1METOO::YARBROUGHThu Oct 10 1985 15:5820
Here are the solutions for sides <1,000,000, including the degenerate 
solution. The general solution is that B is an integer solution of the
quadratic diophantine equation
	 2    2                 
	B = 3Y + 4,
where Y is also an integer. I don't have my Pell equation solving program 
handy, so this will have to do. - Lynn Yarbrough

 A             B             C                      Area
--------------------------------------------------------
 1             2             3                         0
 3             4             5                         6
 13            14            15                       84
 51            52            53                     1170
 193           194           195                   16296
 723           724           725                  226974
 2701          2702          2703                3161340
 10083         10084         10085              44031786
 37633         37634         37635             613283664
 140451        140452        140453           8541939510
343.2TOOLS::STANThu Oct 10 1985 16:1910
I found a reference to the problem in Dickson, History of the
the Theory of Numbers, volume 2, page 197.

If the sides are n-1, n, n+1, then n satisfies the recurrence

	n[0]=2, n[1]=4, n[k+2]=4*n[k+1]-n[k].

An explicit formula for n is

	n = (2 + sqrt(3) )^k  +  (2 - sqrt(3) )^k .