I found a different solution to this puzzle

[Keiji]

I found the above in a newspaper I was just reading, and it said I had to find the top number if each one was the sum of the ones below it.

Turns out you don't actually have to do that much adding. Just take the row of Pascal's triangle with the same length as the bottom row (in this case 1 3 3 1) and write the numbers below your bottom line like so:

8₁ 7₃ 9₃ 3₁

Then multiply each pair of numbers and insert the add signs:

8+21+27+3

Then do that addition to get your answer, 59.

[zero]

Ah, a shortcut worthy of Gauss.

[Keiji]

... What was that supposed to mean?

[zero]

Just a reference to the story of Gauss as a child in school solving a problem his teacher provided to keep all the students busy summing every integer from 1 to 100. Creative shortcuts for problems like these, whether relatively basic or somewhat more involved, are always interesting to me.

[papernuke]

Turns out you don't actually have to do that much adding. Just take the row of Pascal's triangle with the same length as the bottom row (in this case 1 3 3 1) and write the numbers below your bottom line like so:
.

What do you mean?
And where did you get the threes?

[Keiji]

Click the words Pascal's triangle and you'll find out