2009 Serge Lang Undergraduate Lecture: The real and p-adic lives of n!

Lecture | November 5 | 4:10-5 p.m. | 60 Evans Hall

Speaker: Benedict H. (Dick) Gross, Harvard University

Sponsor: Mathematics, Department of

To study the size of n! = n · (n − 1) · (n − 2) · · · 3 · 2 · 1, it is helpful to have an extension of the function n → n! to the real numbers. Euler found a wonderful extension—the Gamma function.
I’ll discuss this function, and also an analogous function that extends n! to a continuous function on the p-adic integers. I’ll end with some remarks on the connection between the values of these two functions at rational numbers.

Event Contact: 510-642-6550