Editing Figurate number (section)

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The term '''figurate number''' is used by different writers for members of different sets of numbers, generalizing from [[triangular numbers]] to different shapes ([[polygonal number]]s) and different dimensions (polyhedral numbers). The ancient Greek mathematicians already considered [[triangular number]]s, [[polygonal number]]s, [[tetrahedral number]]s, and [[pyramidal number]]s,<ref name="Dickson">{{citation |author-link=Leonard Eugene Dickson |first=L. E. |last=Dickson |title=History of the Theory of Numbers |year=1919|publisher=Carnegie Institute of Washington|page=iii|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiuo.ark:/13960/t59d9qq13&seq=9}} Reprinted, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39076006334317&seq=5 G. E. Stechert & Co., 1934], and AMS Chelsea Publishing, 1944.</ref> and subsequent mathematicians have included other classes of these numbers including numbers defined from other types of polyhedra and from their analogs in other dimensions.