Message344414
For what its worth, there are concrete, practical applications for
binomial coefficients with negative arguments. They are used in
fractional calculus
https://nrich.maths.org/1365
which in turn has applications in physics, chemistry and other sciences:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_calculus#Applications
Take that however you see fit :-)
My own preference is for a comb() function that returns 0 for out of
bounds values (e.g. "choose 5 items from 4"), and a seperate binomial()
function that accepts any positive or negative integer values. Even I
think that fractional and complex arguments are probably a bit too
exotic for the std lib -- that's Mathematica territory.
And yes, Mathematica does accept fractional and complex arguments to
the choose() function.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=choose%28sqr%28-3.5%29,+sqrt%28-4%2Bi%29%29 |
|
Date |
User |
Action |
Args |
2019-06-03 11:40:50 | steven.daprano | set | recipients:
+ steven.daprano, tim.peters, rhettinger, mark.dickinson, jwilk, serhiy.storchaka, josh.r, pablogsal, kellerfuchs, FR4NKESTI3N, David Radcliffe |
2019-06-03 11:40:50 | steven.daprano | link | issue35431 messages |
2019-06-03 11:40:50 | steven.daprano | create | |
|