Skip to main content
1 of 5

Integral of power of binomials equal to sum of power of binomials?

Inspired by this MO question about integrating binomial coefficients and the answers, I was wondering whether integrating powers of binomial coefficients also relates to the respective sums. And indeed I have strong numerical evidence that $$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \binom{n}{x}^2 dx =\sum_{k=0}^n\binom{n}{k}^2$$. (The latter expression is of course $\binom{2n}{n}$.)

So I'm wondering for which $l$ the following identity holds: $$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \binom{n}{x}^l dx =\sum_{k=0}^n\binom{n}{k}^l$$.

(And furthermore one could conjecture that there are similar examples, where sum over binomials is identical to integral of the same expression over real numbers.)