Ahao.169 net.general utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!mhtsa!eagle!ihnss!ucbvax!menlo70!hao!woods Tue Jan 26 13:15:30 1982 Re: Factorial Query (repl. to mhtsa!research!sjb) It has been two years since I had complex function theory, but I distinctly remember that the factorial function can be defined much more generally in the complex plane and is called, I think, the Zeta function or some such. It is analytic over the whole complex plane (meaning it has derivatives everywhere). The normal definition over the set of positive real integers turns out to be a subset of the Zeta function. In order for the Zeta function to be analytic, it is necessary that 0!=1. GREG (ucbvax!menlo70!hao!woods) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.