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Re: Some bugs in Mathematica

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg59450] Re: Some bugs in Mathematica
  • From: "Dana DeLouis" <delouis at bellsouth.net>
  • Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 02:56:03 -0400 (EDT)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

> ... I made two misprints when typing formula.
> Instead of Gamma[n-k-1], it should be \Pi Gamma[n-k]. I apologize for
> the confusion. 

Hi.  For your first example, I see that the equation is now:

equ[n_]:=Sum[(Gamma[-k+n-1/2]*Gamma[k+1/2])/
(Pi*Gamma[n-k]*Gamma[k+1]),
{k,0,n-1}]

It looks to me that one gets an answer of 1 only if n is a positive integer.
Examples:
equ[4]
1

equ[7]
1

However, if n is not a positive integer, then the answer is not 1.
equ[8.3]
0.9112451645862876

It appears that you have to tell Mathematica to make the assumptions that n
is an integer.  However, the following below was returned unevaluated.  I
tried all variations on the theme below, but could not get a return value of
1.  Maybe someone can jump in and take it from here...

Assuming[n>=1&&Element[n,Integers],
Sum[(Gamma[-k+n-1/2]*Gamma[k+1/2])/
 (Pi*Gamma[n-k]*Gamma[k+1]),
{k,0,n-1}]]

<returned  unevaluated...>


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