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A triangular number is the sum of the n natural numbers from 1 to n. What is the fastest method to find whether a given positive integer number is a triangular one?
Here is a cut of the first 1200th up to 1300th triangular numbers, you can easily see a bit-pattern here (if not, try to zoom out):
(720600, '10101111111011011000')
(721801, '10110000001110001001')
(723003, '10110000100000111011')
(724206, '10110000110011101110')
(725410, '10110001000110100010')
(726615, '10110001011001010111')
(727821, '10110001101100001101')
(729028, '10110001111111000100')
(730236, '10110010010001111100')
(731445, '10110010100100110101')
(732655, '10110010110111101111')
(733866, '10110011001010101010')
(735078, '10110011011101100110')
(736291, '10110011110000100011')
(737505, '10110100000011100001')
(738720, '10110100010110100000')
(739936, '10110100101001100000')
(741153, '10110100111100100001')
(742371, '10110101001111100011')
(743590, '10110101100010100110')
(744810, '10110101110101101010')
(746031, '10110110001000101111')
(747253, '10110110011011110101')
(748476, '10110110101110111100')
(749700, '10110111000010000100')
(750925, '10110111010101001101')
(752151, '10110111101000010111')
(753378, '10110111111011100010')
(754606, '10111000001110101110')
(755835, '10111000100001111011')
(757065, '10111000110101001001')
(758296, '10111001001000011000')
(759528, '10111001011011101000')
(760761, '10111001101110111001')
(761995, '10111010000010001011')
(763230, '10111010010101011110')
(764466, '10111010101000110010')
(765703, '10111010111100000111')
(766941, '10111011001111011101')
(768180, '10111011100010110100')
(769420, '10111011110110001100')
(770661, '10111100001001100101')
(771903, '10111100011100111111')
(773146, '10111100110000011010')
(774390, '10111101000011110110')
(775635, '10111101010111010011')
(776881, '10111101101010110001')
(778128, '10111101111110010000')
(779376, '10111110010001110000')
(780625, '10111110100101010001')
(781875, '10111110111000110011')
(783126, '10111111001100010110')
(784378, '10111111011111111010')
(785631, '10111111110011011111')
(786885, '11000000000111000101')
(788140, '11000000011010101100')
(789396, '11000000101110010100')
(790653, '11000001000001111101')
(791911, '11000001010101100111')
(793170, '11000001101001010010')
(794430, '11000001111100111110')
(795691, '11000010010000101011')
(796953, '11000010100100011001')
(798216, '11000010111000001000')
(799480, '11000011001011111000')
(800745, '11000011011111101001')
(802011, '11000011110011011011')
(803278, '11000100000111001110')
(804546, '11000100011011000010')
(805815, '11000100101110110111')
(807085, '11000101000010101101')
(808356, '11000101010110100100')
(809628, '11000101101010011100')
(810901, '11000101111110010101')
(812175, '11000110010010001111')
(813450, '11000110100110001010')
(814726, '11000110111010000110')
(816003, '11000111001110000011')
(817281, '11000111100010000001')
(818560, '11000111110110000000')
(819840, '11001000001010000000')
(821121, '11001000011110000001')
(822403, '11001000110010000011')
(823686, '11001001000110000110')
(824970, '11001001011010001010')
(826255, '11001001101110001111')
(827541, '11001010000010010101')
(828828, '11001010010110011100')
(830116, '11001010101010100100')
(831405, '11001010111110101101')
(832695, '11001011010010110111')
(833986, '11001011100111000010')
(835278, '11001011111011001110')
(836571, '11001100001111011011')
(837865, '11001100100011101001')
(839160, '11001100110111111000')
(840456, '11001101001100001000')
(841753, '11001101100000011001')
(843051, '11001101110100101011')
(844350, '11001110001000111110')
For example, can you also see a rotated normal distribution curve, represented by zeros between 807085 and 831405? This pattern repeats itself regularly.-->
573
A number is termed as triangular number if we can represent it in the form of triangular grid of points such that the points form an equilateral triangle and each row contains as many points as the row number, i.e., the first row has one point, second row has two points, third row has three points and so on.
triangular numbers: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, ... (these numbers can be represented as a triangle of dots). The term to term rule for the triangle numbers is to add one more each time: 1 + 2 = 3, 3 + 3 = 6, 6 + 4 = 10 etc. Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...
The triangular number sequence is the representation of the numbers in the form of equilateral triangle arranged in a series or sequence. These numbers are in a sequence of 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, and so on. The numbers in the triangular pattern are represented by dots.
An integer x is triangular exactly if 8x + 1 is a square.
128
If n is the mth triangular number, then n = m*(m+1)/2. Solving for m using the quadratic formula:
m = (sqrt(8n+1) - 1) / 2
So n is triangular if and only if 8n+1 is a perfect square. To quickly determine whether a number is a perfect square, see this question: Fastest way to determine if an integer’s square root is an integer.
Note that if 8n+1 is a perfect square, then the numerator in the above formula will always be even, so there's no need to check that it is divisible by 2.
44
I don't know if this is the fastest, but here is some math that should get you in the right direction...
S = n (n + 1) / 2
2*S = n^2 + n
n^2 + n - 2*S = 0
You now have a quadratic equation.
Solve for n.
If n does not have an fractional bits, you are good to go.
3
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