Example 11 Divide the sides of an equilateral triangle into equal parts, and draw lines parallel to the sides through each division point within the triangle, thus forming a grid of equilateral triangles. Find the number of parallelograms in the equilateral triangle.
Solution
Solution: First, as shown in Figure , consider parallelograms whose sides are not parallel to . Clearly, such a parallelogram has its two pairs of opposite sides extended to intersect at four points ; conversely, any four points on correspond to one such parallelogram. Therefore, there is a 1-1 correspondence between the set of parallelograms whose sides are not parallel to and the set of all combinations of four points on . Thus, the number of parallelograms whose sides are not parallel to is . By symmetry, the total number of parallelograms in the triangular grid is .
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