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In mathematics, a trinomial expansion is the expansion of a power of a sum of three terms into
monomial In mathematics, a monomial is, roughly speaking, a polynomial which has only one term. Two definitions of a monomial may be encountered: # A monomial, also called power product, is a product of powers of variables with nonnegative integer expon ...
s. The expansion is given by :(a+b+c)^n = \sum_ \, a^i \, b^ \;\! c^k, where is a nonnegative integer and the sum is taken over all combinations of nonnegative indices and such that . The trinomial coefficients are given by : = \frac \,. This formula is a special case of the multinomial formula for . The coefficients can be defined with a generalization of
Pascal's triangle In mathematics, Pascal's triangle is a triangular array of the binomial coefficients that arises in probability theory, combinatorics, and algebra. In much of the Western world, it is named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, althoug ...
to three dimensions, called
Pascal's pyramid In mathematics, Pascal's pyramid is a three-dimensional arrangement of the trinomial numbers, which are the coefficients of the trinomial expansion and the trinomial distribution. Pascal's pyramid is the three-dimensional analog of the two-dim ...
or Pascal's tetrahedron.


Properties

The number of terms of an expanded trinomial is the
triangular number A triangular number or triangle number counts objects arranged in an equilateral triangle. Triangular numbers are a type of figurate number, other examples being square numbers and cube numbers. The th triangular number is the number of dots i ...
: t_ = \frac, where is the exponent to which the trinomial is raised..


Example

An example of a trinomial expansion with n=2 is : (a+b+c)^2=a^2+b^2+c^2+2ab+2bc+2ca


See also

* Binomial expansion *
Pascal's pyramid In mathematics, Pascal's pyramid is a three-dimensional arrangement of the trinomial numbers, which are the coefficients of the trinomial expansion and the trinomial distribution. Pascal's pyramid is the three-dimensional analog of the two-dim ...
*
Multinomial coefficient In mathematics, the multinomial theorem describes how to expand a power of a sum in terms of powers of the terms in that sum. It is the generalization of the binomial theorem from binomials to multinomials. Theorem For any positive integer ...
* Trinomial triangle


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trinomial Expansion Factorial and binomial topics