Timeline for Why is the Gamma function shifted from the factorial by 1?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 28, 2010 at 17:03 | comment | added | Pietro Majer | "Legendre's reasons...are obscure". The main issue in my opinion is slightly different. Let's recall that 200 years ago (but even more recently) standardizing the notation was much more a difficult problem, and less urgent at the same time -no internet, no common scientific language, no or very few international meetings. In such a situation it was quite natural and harmless even introducing a notation ad hoc in any new memoir. Note that Weierstrass' one was the "factorial function", Fc(z), the reciprocal of the Gamma function. | |
| Apr 10, 2010 at 23:28 | vote | accept | Kevin Casto | ||
| Apr 10, 2010 at 23:27 | comment | added | Kevin Casto | Yeah, this is basically what I assumed. It is nice to have someone directly address the issue instead of sweeping it under the rug. And for those interested, the book is on Google Books - books.google.com/books?id=5uLAoued_dIC - and pages 8-10 have most of the identities listed above. | |
| Apr 10, 2010 at 22:45 | history | answered | Will Jagy | CC BY-SA 2.5 |