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Please forgive me if this is inappropriate for MathOverflow. I've been working/playing with generating functions for a little while and may have stumbled upon a new technique or methodology.

The problem is that it's incomplete, and I don't have a lot to show to someone to prove its effectiveness. I believe I need some help fine tuning this method to get it to work. I'm unsure if I can solve it, at least easily, on my own. I've tried contacting a few big name professors in the field, but most seemed to busy. I was wondering if there's someone who could spare some time to look into what I'm working on.

Are there any suggestions of people that I could try contacting? If it's not advisable to go forward with contacting people at this time, what else should/could I try to help get answers? I realize I haven't described my method here; it's a pretty complicated one, but one that can probably be explained in a few pages.

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not sure this question is appropriate. However, it's possible that the answer to your question is in fact "MathOverflow", and in that case it perhaps would be appropriate to ask a question in which you outline your method or the problem you're trying to solve. $\endgroup$ Apr 3, 2010 at 2:43
  • $\begingroup$ I actually asked a question regarding something similar, but it was very difficult for me to describe. I'm going to consult with the tips and tricks for authoring here on MO. $\endgroup$
    – Generator
    Apr 3, 2010 at 3:12
  • $\begingroup$ In the present form the question cannot be answered. Are you looking at asymptotics? Or exact equations? Or congruence properties? Or the analytic behaviour of generating functions? Or uniform behaviour in families of generating functions? As long as we don't know, we cannot help. The best would be to describe one application of your method, which appears to be new. $\endgroup$ Dec 5, 2017 at 16:04

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Your best bet is to clarify what you have first, in line with accepted current terminology. Then type up what you have in a few pages with something like Latex. I note your question uses none, and that may be one reason people did not reply to your queries.

To be specific, there are two free books available online, one by Wilf called generatingfunctionology, one by Flajolet and Sedgewick called something like Analytic Combinatorics, both titles are given correctly with links in the answers to this: Free, high quality mathematical writing online?

If you can get a fairly clean description of what you do have, you may contact me, just click on my name and there will be instructions for how to find one of my email addresses. It is not that I am expert in this particular field, of course. But I answer email.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your volunteering and answers, Will. I'm embarassed, I tried to contact Wilf regarding something very simple. I don't want to waste anyone's time. However, maybe someone with more expertise than me, a novice, will be able to point me in the right direction. I'll try to send you some TeX/pdf detailing my results. $\endgroup$
    – Generator
    Apr 3, 2010 at 2:50
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Also, be sure there isn't another easier way of doing the same thing. Download Wilf's book Generatingfunctionology and check to see that someone else hasn't already solved the problem!

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  • $\begingroup$ Oops--didn't mean to be redundant! $\endgroup$
    – Mike Stay
    Apr 6, 2010 at 19:59

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