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Author David Radcliffe
Recipients David Radcliffe, FR4NKESTI3N, josh.r, jwilk, kellerfuchs, mark.dickinson, pablogsal, rhettinger, serhiy.storchaka, steven.daprano, tim.peters
Date 2019-06-01.22:37:31
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Message-id <1559428651.33.0.42234840663.issue35431@roundup.psfhosted.org>
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I think that binomial(n, k) should return 0 when k > n or k < 0. This is a practical consideration. I'm concerned about evaluating sums involving binomial coefficients. Mathematicians are often rather loose about specifying the upper and lower bounds of summation, because the unwanted terms are zero anyway. These formulas should not result in value errors when they are implemented directly.

To give a simplistic example, the sum of the first n positive integers is binomial(n+1, 2), and the formula should still work if n is zero.
History
Date User Action Args
2019-06-01 22:37:31David Radcliffesetrecipients: + David Radcliffe, tim.peters, rhettinger, mark.dickinson, jwilk, steven.daprano, serhiy.storchaka, josh.r, pablogsal, kellerfuchs, FR4NKESTI3N
2019-06-01 22:37:31David Radcliffesetmessageid: <1559428651.33.0.42234840663.issue35431@roundup.psfhosted.org>
2019-06-01 22:37:31David Radcliffelinkissue35431 messages
2019-06-01 22:37:31David Radcliffecreate