Problem
2003 AMC 10A Problem 23
A large equilateral triangle is constructed by using toothpicks to create rows of small equilateral triangles. For example, in the figure we have 3 rows of small congruent equilateral triangles, with 5 small triangles in the base row. How many toothpicks would be needed to construct a large equilateral triangle if the base row of the triangle consists of 2003 small equilateral triangles?
![[asy] unitsize(15mm); defaultpen(linewidth(.8pt)+fontsize(8pt)); pair Ap=(0,0), Bp=(1,0), Cp=(2,0), Dp=(3,0), Gp=dir(60); pair Fp=shift(Gp)*Bp, Ep=shift(Gp)*Cp; pair Hp=shift(Gp)*Gp, Ip=shift(Gp)*Fp; pair Jp=shift(Gp)*Hp; pair[] points={Ap,Bp,Cp,Dp,Ep,Fp,Gp,Hp,Ip,Jp}; draw(Ap--Dp--Jp--cycle); draw(Gp--Bp--Ip--Hp--Cp--Ep--cycle); for(pair p : points) { fill(circle(p, 0.07),white); } pair[] Cn=new pair[5]; Cn[0]=centroid(Ap,Bp,Gp); Cn[1]=centroid(Gp,Bp,Fp); Cn[2]=centroid(Bp,Fp,Cp); Cn[3]=centroid(Cp,Fp,Ep); Cn[4]=centroid(Cp,Ep,Dp); label("$1$",Cn[0]); label("$2$",Cn[1]); label("$3$",Cn[2]); label("$4$",Cn[3]); label("$5$",Cn[4]); for (pair p : Cn) { draw(circle(p,0.1)); }[/asy]](/static/aops/16ca1f0305d713b2b9e5a0c53658d11829856ec7.png)
\mathrm{(A) \ } 1,004,004 \qquad \mathrm{(B) \ } 1,005,006 \qquad \mathrm{(C) \ } 1,507,509 \qquad \mathrm{(D) \ } 3,015,018 \qquad \mathrm{(E) \ } 6,021,018
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