Sunday, January 21, 2018

real analysis - Can there be only one extension to the factorial?



Usually, when someone says something like (12)!, they are probably referring to the Gamma function, which extends the factorial to any value of x.



The usual definition of the factorial is x!=1×2×3×x, but for xN, the Gamma function results in x!=0txetdt.



However, back a while ago, someone mentioned that there may be more than one way to define the factorial for non-integer arguments, and so, I wished to disprove that statement with some assumptions about the factorial function.







the factorial




  1. is a C function for xC except at Z<0 because of singularities, which we will see later.


  2. is a monotone increasing function that is concave up for x>1.


  3. satisfies the relation x!=x(x1)!


  4. and lastly 1!=1








From 3 and 4, one can define x! for xN, and we can see that for negative integer arguments, the factorial is undefined. We can also see that 0!=1.



Since we assumed 2, we should be able to sketch the factorial for x>1, using our points found from 3,4 as guidelines.



At the same time, when sketching the graph, we remember 1, so there can be no jumps or gaps from one value of x to the next.



Then we reapply 3, correcting values for xR, since all values of x must satisfy this relationship.




Again, because of 1, we must re-correct our graph, since having 3 makes the derivative of x! for xN undefined.



So, because of 1 and 3, I realized that there can only be one way to define the factorial for xR.



Is my reasoning correct? And can there be only one extension to the factorial?






Oh, and here is a 'link' to how I almost differentiated the factorial only with a few assumptions, like that it is even possible to differentiate.




Putting that in mind, it could be possible to define the factorial with Taylor's theorem?


Answer



First, for a fixed cC, let Fc(z):=Γ(z+1)(1+csin(2πz)) for all zCZ<0, which defines an analytic function Fc:CZ<0C such that Fc(z)=zFc(z1)
for all zCZ0 and that Fc(0)=Fc(1)=1 (whence Fc(n)=n! for every nZ0). Excluding the essential singularity at , the negative integers are the only singularities of Fc, which are simple poles.



Here are some results I checked with Mathematica. If c is a positive real number less than 0.022752, then Fc(z)>0 for all z>1 and Fc for all z>-1, making F_c monotonically increasing on (1,\infty) and convex on (-1,\infty). It also appears that, with $0

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