Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / ia / Paper 4 / 5E / a / i / Solution

Define the binomial coefficient $\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{n}{r}\right)$ as the number of $r$-element subsets of an $n$-element set, equivalently as $n!/[r!(n-r)!]$. Partitioning the $r$-element subsets of $\{1,\dots ,n+1\}$ according to whether they contain $n+1$ proves Pascal's identityThus the forward difference operator satisfies