Re: factorial doc bug?

> On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 02:45:10PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > Thomas Lockhart writes:
> > 
> > > Keep in mind that he is a mathematician, and I'll guess that he won't
> > > have much patience with folks who expect a result for a factorial of a
> > > fractional number ;)
> > 
> > Real mathematicians will be perfectly happy with a factorial for a
> > fractional number, as long as it's properly and consistently defined. ;-)
> > 
> > Seriously, there is a well-established definition of factorials of
> > non-integral real numbers, but the current behaviour is probably the most
> > intuitive for the vast majority of users.
> 
> I would be happy with with exp(lgamma(x+1)) as a synonym for x!
> (So 4.3!=38.078 as far as I'm concerned :) )

Yes, gamms is the standard for non-integer factorial but we don't
implement it that way.  :-)

--  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610)
853-3000+  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill,
Pennsylvania19026