In matrix theory and combinatorics, a Pascal matrix is a matrix (possibly infinite) containing the binomial coefficients as its elements. It is thus an encoding of Pascal's triangle in matrix form. There are three natural ways to achieve this: as a lower-triangular matrix, an upper-triangular matrix, or a symmetric matrix. For example, the 5 × 5 matrices are:
L 5 = ( 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 1 3 3 1 0 1 4 6 4 1 ) {\displaystyle L_{5}={\begin{pmatrix}1&0&0&0&0\\1&1&0&0&0\\1&2&1&0&0\\1&3&3&1&0\\1&4&6&4&1\end{pmatrix}}\,\,\,} U 5 = ( 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 2 3 4 0 0 1 3 6 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 0 1 ) {\displaystyle U_{5}={\begin{pmatrix}1&1&1&1&1\\0&1&2&3&4\\0&0&1&3&6\\0&0&0&1&4\\0&0&0&0&1\end{pmatrix}}\,\,\,} S 5 = ( 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 5 1 3 6 10 15 1 4 10 20 35 1 5 15 35 70 ) = L 5 × U 5 {\displaystyle S_{5}={\begin{pmatrix}1&1&1&1&1\\1&2&3&4&5\\1&3&6&10&15\\1&4&10&20&35\\1&5&15&35&70\end{pmatrix}}=L_{5}\times U_{5}} There are other ways in which Pascal's triangle can be put into matrix form, but these are not easily extended to infinity.