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Consider the Sierpinski triangle. We can easily find three points and three segments of it to form a regular triangle, which is a triangular subset of the Sierpinski triangle. Question: What is the cardinality of all triangular subsets of the Sierpinski triangle?


This is an example of 13 triangles (or "triangular subsets" of the whole set): https://youtu.be/dUn2LdhfHy8


Rephrase: Let us call the Sierpinski triangle S. P(S) denotes its power set. There are elements of P(S) that are triangles. What is the cardinality of {T: T is in P(S) and T is a triangle}.

  • Can you please clarify your definition of a "triangular subset" of the Sierpinski gasket? Can you give an example? – Xander Henderson Nov 27 '18 at 14:46
  • @XanderHenderson. A subset of the set Sierpinski triangle is called triangular (by me) if it is a triangle. –  Nov 27 '18 at 15:11
  • That didn't actually answer my question. Can you give a few examples? In one of the usual constructions of the Sierpinski gasket, triangles are removed in an iterative fashion---in the limit, there are no solid triangles remaining. Your question implies that this is not what you mean. Are the (boundaries of the) removed triangles "triangular subsets"? Can you please edit your question to give some examples? – Xander Henderson Nov 27 '18 at 15:22
  • @XanderHenderson. This is an example of 13 triangles: https://youtu.be/dUn2LdhfHy8 –  Nov 27 '18 at 15:35
  • (1) Linking to a video is not really advisable, since that relies on something offsite---questions should be self-contained to mitigate against link rot. (2) The video that you linked does not show the Sierpinski gasket nor any finite approximation of the gasket. I don't see how that answers my question. Indeed, you have not addressed the issue of whether or not the removed triangles should be counted. – Xander Henderson Nov 27 '18 at 15:38
  • @XanderHenderson This is the Wikipedia page on the Sierpinski triangle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierpinski_triangle and here you can find the definition of a triangle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle –  Nov 27 '18 at 15:45
  • @XanderHenderson Seems clear enough to me. A triangle is a three sided polygon; it is not convex. Even if one can produce a text to the contrary, surely the question only makes sense, if we consider a triangle to be a plane figure consisting of three vertices connected by three line segments. – Mark McClure Nov 27 '18 at 16:44
  • @MarkMcClure That was my first assumption, but the video seemed to consider solid triangles. It confused me rather than clarified. – Xander Henderson Nov 27 '18 at 16:46

1 Answers1

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The answer to this question depends very much on how you define a triangle, as there is not really a single consistent definition which is used throughout mathematics. Quoting MathWorld:

A polygon can be defined (as illustrated above) as a geometric object "consisting of a number of points (called vertices) and an equal number of line segments (called sides), namely a cyclically ordered set of points in a plane, with no three successive points collinear, together with the line segments joining consecutive pairs of the points. In other words, a polygon is closed broken line lying in a plane" (Coxeter and Greitzer 1967, p. 51).

There is unfortunately substantial disagreement over the definition of a polygon. Other sources commonly define a polygon (in the sense illustrated above) as a "closed plane figure with straight edges" (Gellert et al. 1989, p. 162), "a closed plane figure bounded by straight line segments as its sides" (Bronshtein et al. 2003, p. 137), or "a closed plane figure bounded by three or more line segments that terminate in pairs at the same number of vertices, and do not intersect other than at their vertices" (Borowski and Borwein 2005, p. 573). These definitions all imply that a polygon is a set of line segments plus the region they enclose, though they never define precisely what is meant by "closed plane figure" and universally depict polygons as a closed broken black lines with no shading of the interiors.

There are basically two definitions which might be relevant:

Definition A: A triangle is a plane figure bounded by three line segments which terminate at three vertices.

or

Definition B: A triangle is a geometric object consisting of three points (vertices) and three line segments (sides).


Assuming Defintion A:

If we assume Definition A, then the answer is that there are no triangles contained in the Sierpinski gasket. The simplest argument which show this is, I think, a topological argument. A triangle has nonempty interior (that is, in any triangle we can find at least one point $x$ and some positive number $r > 0$ such that the ball of radius $r$ centered at $x$ is entirely contained in the triangle). On the other hand, the Sierpinski gasket has empty interior. As the Sierpinki gasket has empty interior, it cannot contain any triangles.


Assuming Defintion B:

If we assume Definition B, then the answer is more interesting. For specificity of notation, let $\mathscr{T} \subseteq \mathscr{P}(\mathcal{S})$ denote the set of triangles contained in the Sierpinski gasket.

One construction of the Sierpinski gasket is as the attractor of an iterated function system. Specifically, define the contraction maps \begin{align} \varphi_1(x,y) &:= \tfrac{1}{2}(x,y) \\ \varphi_2(x,y) &:= \tfrac{1}{2}(x,y) + (\tfrac{1}{2},0) \\ \varphi_3(x,y) &:= \tfrac{1}{2}(x,y) + (\tfrac{1}{4},\tfrac{\sqrt{3}}{4}). \end{align} The Sierpinski gasket $\mathcal{S}$ is the unique nonempty compact set satisfying the relation $$ \mathcal{S} = \bigcup_{j=1}^{3} \varphi_j(\mathcal{S}). $$ This iterated function system gives us means for assigning an "address" to many (all?) of the triangular subsets of the gasket. In particular, if a triangle $T$ is contained in the Sierpinski gasket, then so too is its image under each of the maps in the iterated function system. So we can start by identifying an "ur-triangle", then watching as that triangle is mapped forward by the iterated function system.

Let $T$ be the triangle with vertices $$ \left(0,0\right), \qquad \left( 1, 0 \right), \qquad\text{and}\qquad \left( \frac{1}{2}, \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\right). $$ Note that $T \in \mathscr{T}$, i.e. this triangle is contained in the Sierpinski gasket (indeed, this is the convex hull of the gasket with respect to this construction, and is therefore the largest triangle contained therein).

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After applying the iterated function system to $T$, we obtain the following:

enter image description here

In this image, $T_j = \varphi_j(T)$, and $G$ is the triangle bounded by the $T_j$. (I have labeled it $G$ for "gap": one common construction of the Sierpinski gasket is to remove solid triangles at each stage of the construction leaving gaps; $G$ is the first such removed triangle). Observe that $T_j, G \in \mathscr{T}$.

Applying the iterated function system again, we get

enter image description here

For each $j$, the set $G_j$ is $\varphi_j(G)$, and the sets $T_{jk}$ are the sets $\varphi_{k} \circ \varphi_{j}(T)$. Note that (1) all of the sets $G_j$ and $T_{jk}$ are triangles contained in the Sierpinski gasket, and (2) we have not relabeled the triangle $G$, as it has already been counted (in the previous stage of the construction). Again, $T_{jk},G \in \mathscr{T}$.

We can continue this process: for any finite sequence $\alpha$ consisting of the digits $1$, $2$, and $3$ (that is, for any $\alpha = (\alpha_1, \alpha_2, \dotsc, \alpha_m) \in \bigcup_{n=1}^{\infty} \{1,2,3\}^n$) let $$ T_{\alpha} = \varphi_{\alpha_m} \circ \dotsb \circ \varphi_{\alpha_2} \circ \varphi_{\alpha_1} (T) \qquad\text{and}\qquad G_{\alpha} = \varphi_{\alpha_m} \circ \dotsb \circ \varphi_{\alpha_2} \circ \varphi_{\alpha_1} (G). $$ For any $\alpha$, we have $T_{\alpha},G_{\alpha} \in \mathscr{T}$. Therefore $$ \{T, G\} \cup \left(\bigcup_{n=1}^{\infty} \bigcup_{\alpha\in \{1,2,3\}^n} T_{\alpha} \right) \cup \left(\bigcup_{n=1}^{\infty} \bigcup_{\alpha\in \{1,2,3\}^n} G_{\alpha} \right) \subseteq \mathscr{T}. $$ This set of triangles is the countable union of finite sets, therefore countable. Thus $\mathscr{T}$ is at least countable.

To fully answer the question, it remains to show that the above set is exactly $\mathscr{T}$, which would tell us that the set of triangles contained in $\mathcal{S}$ is countable. This can be done by observing that we have already counted all of the triangles with sides parallel to the sides of $T$ (this should be checked), and that any segment that is not parallel to the sides of $T$ must eventually intersect one of the removed triangles in the construction (this should also be checked). Hence such a segment is not entirely contained in the gasket, and therefore cannot be the side of a triangle contained in the gasket.

From this, it follows that the Sierpinski gasket contains countably many triangular subsets (all of which are equilateral, even).

  • Triangular subset ssociated with serpinski's triangle can as well be very eccurately defined by a combination of barycentric coordinates written with base 2 as explained here – Jean Marie Nov 13 '20 at 23:02
  • @JeanMarie Yes, and? I am not sure that that has to do with my answer. If you have another approach to the problem, you are more than welcome to post your own answer... – Xander Henderson Nov 13 '20 at 23:40
  • Maybe not directly to your answer but in general to the question of the OP about the definition of a triangle in this context. I think that he means triangles that are left empty by any construction process of the Sierpinski triangle. – Jean Marie Nov 13 '20 at 23:42