Factorial

In mathematics, the factorial of a positive integer n, denoted by n!, is the product of all positive integers less
than or equal to n:

For example,

The value of 0! is 1, according to the convention for an empty product.[1]

The factorial operation is encountered in many areas of mathematics, notably in combinatorics, algebra, and
mathematical analysis. Its most basic use counts the possible distinct sequences – the permutations – of n
distinct objects: there are n!.

The factorial function can also be extended to non-integer arguments while retaining its most important
properties by defining x! = Γ(x + 1), where Γ is the gamma function; this is undefined when x is a negative
integer.

Contents
History
Definition
Factorial of zero
Applications
Rate of growth and approximations for large n
Computation
Number theory
Series of reciprocals
Factorial of non-integer values
The gamma and pi functions
Applications of the gamma function
Factorial in the complex plane
Approximations of the factorial
Non-extendability to negative integers
Factorial-like products and functions
Double factorial
Multifactorials
Primorial
Superfactorial
Pickover’s superfactorial
Hyperfactorial
See also
References Selected members of the factorial
Citations sequence (sequence A000142 in the
OEIS); values specified in scientific
Sources notation are rounded to the displayed
Further reading precision

External links n n!
0 1
1 1
History
2 2

The author of the ancient Jewish text Sefer Yetzirah demonstrates 3 6

familiarity with factorials being used to count permutations, therefore 4 24
this technique's use can be dated to at least the Talmudic period (200 to
5 120
500 CE).[2] Indian scholars were known to use the technique as early as
the 12th century.[3] In 1677, Fabian Stedman described factorials as 6 720
applied to change ringing, a musical art involving the ringing of many 7 5 040
tuned bells.[4] After describing a recursive approach, Stedman gives a
8 40 320
statement of a factorial (using the language of the original):
9 362 880

Now the nature of these methods is such, that the changes on 10 3 628 800
one number comprehends [includes] the changes on all lesser 11 39 916 800
numbers ... insomuch that a compleat Peal of changes on one 12 479 001 600
number seemeth to be formed by uniting of the compleat
Peals on all lesser numbers into one entire body.[5] 13 6 227 020 800
14 87 178 291 200

The notation n! was introduced by the French mathematician Christian 15 1 307 674 368 000
Kramp in 1808.[6] 16 20 922 789 888 000
17 355 687 428 096 000
Definition 18 6 402 373 705 728 000
19 121 645 100 408 832 000
The factorial function is defined by the product
20 2 432 902 008 176 640 000

25 1.551 121 004 × 1025

for integer n ≥ 1. This may be written in pi product notation as 50 3.041 409 320 × 1064

70 1.197 857 167 × 10100

100 9.332 621 544 × 10157

450 1.733 368 733 × 101 000

This leads to the recurrence relation 1 000 4.023 872 601 × 102 567

3 249 6.412 337 688 × 1010 000

10 000 2.846 259 681 × 1035 659

For example,
25 206 1.205 703 438 × 10100 000

100 000 2.824 229 408 × 10456 573

205 023 2.503 898 932 × 101 000 004

1 000 000 8.263 931 688 × 105 565 708

and so on. 101.998 109 775 4820
10100 1010
Factorial of zero

The factorial of 0 is 1, or in symbols, 0! = 1.

There are several motivations for this definition:

For n = 0, the definition of n! as a product involves the product of no numbers at all, and so is an example
of the broader convention that the product of no factors is equal to the multiplicative identity (see Empty
product).
There is exactly one permutation of zero objects (with nothing to permute, the only rearrangement is to do
nothing).
It makes many identities in combinatorics valid for all applicable sizes. The number of ways to choose 0
elements from the empty set is given by the binomial coefficient

More generally, the number of ways to choose all n elements among a set of n is

It allows for the compact expression of many formulae, such as the exponential function, as a power series:

It extends the recurrence relation to 0.

Applications
Although the factorial function has its roots in combinatorics, formulas involving factorials occur in many areas
of mathematics.

There are n! different ways of arranging n distinct objects into a sequence, the permutations of those
objects.[7][8]
Often factorials appear in the denominator of a formula to account for the fact that ordering is to be ignored.
A classical example is counting k-combinations (subsets of k elements) from a set with n elements. One
can obtain such a combination by choosing a k-permutation: successively selecting and removing one
element of the set, k times, for a total of

possibilities. This, however, produces the k-combinations in a particular order that one wishes to ignore;
since each k-combination is obtained in k! different ways, the correct number of k-combinations is
 This number is known[9] as the binomial coefficient, because it is also the coefficient of xk in (1 + x)n. The
term is often called a falling factorial (pronounced "n to the falling k").

Factorials occur in algebra for various reasons, such as via the already mentioned coefficients of the
binomial formula, or through averaging over permutations for symmetrization of certain operations.
Factorials also turn up in calculus; for example, they occur in the denominators of the terms of Taylor's
formula,[10] where they are used as compensation terms due to the nth derivative of xn being equivalent to
n!.
Factorials are also used extensively in probability theory[11] and number theory (see below).
Factorials can be useful to facilitate expression manipulation. For instance the number of k-permutations of
n can be written as

while this is inefficient as a means to compute that number, it may serve to prove a symmetry
property[8][9] of binomial coefficients:

The factorial function can be shown, using the power rule, to be

where Dn xn is Euler's notation for the nth derivative of xn.[12]

Rate of growth and approximations for large n

As n grows, the factorial n! increases faster than all polynomials
and exponential functions (but slower than and double
exponential functions) in n.

Most approximations for n! are based on approximating its

natural logarithm

The graph of the function f(n) = ln n! is shown in the figure on

the right. It looks approximately linear for all reasonable values
of n, but this intuition is false. We get one of the simplest
Plot of the natural logarithm of the factorial
approximations for ln n! by bounding the sum with an integral
from above and below as follows:

which gives us the estimate

Hence ln n! ∼ n ln n (see Big O notation). This result plays a key role in the analysis of the computational
complexity of sorting algorithms (see comparison sort). From the bounds on ln n! deduced above we get that

It is sometimes practical to use weaker but simpler estimates. Using the above formula it is easily shown that
n n
for all n we have ( 3 )n < n!, and for all n ≥ 6 we have n! < ( 2 )n.

For large n we get a better estimate for the number n! using

Stirling's approximation:

This in fact comes from an asymptotic series for the logarithm,

and n factorial lies between this and the next approximation:

Another approximation for ln n! is given by Srinivasa Comparison of Stirling's approximation with the
Ramanujan (Ramanujan 1988) factorial

1
Both this and Stirling's approximation give a relative error on the order of n3 , but Ramanujan's is about four
times more accurate. However, if we use two correction terms in a Stirling-type approximation, as with
1
Ramanujan's approximation, the relative error will be of order n5 :[13]

Computation
If efficiency is not a concern, computing factorials is trivial from an algorithmic point of view: successively
multiplying a variable initialized to 1 by the integers up to n (if any) will compute n!, provided the result fits in
the variable. In functional languages, the recursive definition is often implemented directly to illustrate
recursive functions.
The main practical difficulty in computing factorials is the size of the result. To assure that the exact result will
fit for all legal values of even the smallest commonly used integral type (8-bit signed integers) would require
more than 700 bits, so no reasonable specification of a factorial function using fixed-size types can avoid
questions of overflow. The values 12! and 20! are the largest factorials that can be stored in, respectively, the
32-bit and 64-bit integers commonly used in personal computers, however many languages support variable
length integer types capable of calculating very large values.[14] Floating-point representation of an
approximated result allows going a bit further, but this also remains quite limited by possible overflow. Most
calculators use scientific notation with 2-digit decimal exponents, and the largest factorial that fits is then 69!,
because 69! < 10100 < 70!. Other implementations (such as computer software such as spreadsheet programs)
can often handle larger values.

Most software applications will compute small factorials by direct multiplication or table lookup. Larger
factorial values can be approximated using Stirling's formula. Wolfram Alpha can calculate exact results for the
ceiling function and floor function applied to the binary, natural and common logarithm of n! for values of n up
to 249 999, and up to 20 000 000! for the integers.

If the exact values of large factorials are needed, they can be computed using arbitrary-precision arithmetic.
Instead of doing the sequential multiplications ((1 × 2) × 3) × 4..., a program can partition the sequence into
two parts, whose products are roughly the same size, and multiply them using a divide-and-conquer method.
This is often more efficient.[15]

The asymptotically best efficiency is obtained by computing n! from its prime factorization. As documented by
Peter Borwein, prime factorization allows n! to be computed in time O(n(log n log log n)2), provided that a
fast multiplication algorithm is used (for example, the Schönhage–Strassen algorithm).[16] Peter Luschny
presents source code and benchmarks for several efficient factorial algorithms, with or without the use of a
prime sieve.[17]

Number theory
Factorials have many applications in number theory. In particular, n! is necessarily divisible by all prime
numbers up to and including n. As a consequence, n > 5 is a composite number if and only if

A stronger result is Wilson's theorem, which states that

if and only if p is prime.[18][19]

Legendre's formula gives the multiplicity of the prime p occurring in the prime factorization of n! as

or, equivalently,

where sp(n) denotes the sum of the standard base-p digits of n.

Adding 1 to a factorial n! yields a number that is only divisible by primes that are larger than n. This fact can be
used to prove Euclid's theorem that the number of primes is infinite.[20] Primes of the form n! ± 1 are called
factorial primes.

Series of reciprocals
The reciprocals of factorials produce a convergent series whose sum is the exponential base e:

Although the sum of this series is an irrational number, it is possible to multiply the factorials by positive
integers to produce a convergent series with a rational sum:

The convergence of this series to 1 can be seen from the fact that its partial sums are . Therefore, the

factorials do not form an irrationality sequence.[21]

Factorial of non-integer values

The gamma and pi functions

Besides nonnegative integers, the factorial can also be

defined for non-integer values, but this requires more
advanced tools from mathematical analysis.

One function that fills in the values of the factorial (but with
a shift of 1 in the argument), that is often used, is called the
gamma function, denoted Γ(z). It is defined for all complex
numbers z except for the non-positive integers, and given
when the real part of z is positive by

The gamma function interpolates the factorial

Its relation to the factorial is that n! = Γ(n + 1) for every
function to non-integer values. The main clue is the
nonnegative integer n.
recurrence relation generalized to a continuous
domain.
Euler's original formula for the gamma function was

Carl Friedrich Gauss used the notation Π(z) to denote the same function, but with argument shifted by 1, so
that it agrees with the factorial for nonnegative integers. This pi function is defined by
The pi function and gamma function are related by the formula Π(z) = Γ(z + 1). Likewise, Π(n) = n! for any
nonnegative integer n.

In addition to this, the pi function satisfies the same

recurrence as factorials do, but at every complex value z
where it is defined

This is no longer a recurrence relation but a functional

equation. In terms of the gamma function, it is

The values of these functions at half-integer values is

therefore determined by a single one of them:
The factorial function, generalized to all real numbers
except negative integers. For example, 0! = 1! = 1,
(− 1 )! = √ π , 1 ! = √ π .
2 2 2

from which it follows that for n ∈ N,

For example,

It also follows that for n ∈ N,

For example,

The pi function is certainly not the only way to extend factorials to a function defined at almost all complex
values, and not even the only one that is analytic wherever it is defined. Nonetheless it is usually considered the
most natural way to extend the values of the factorials to a complex function. For instance, the Bohr–Mollerup
theorem states that the gamma function is the only function that takes the value 1 at 1, satisfies the functional
equation Γ(n + 1) = nΓ(n), is meromorphic on the complex numbers, and is log-convex on the positive real
axis. A similar statement holds for the pi function as well, using the Π(n) = nΠ(n − 1) functional equation.
However, there exist complex functions that are probably simpler in the sense of analytic function theory and
which interpolate the factorial values. For example, Hadamard's 'gamma' function (Hadamard 1894) which,
unlike the gamma function, is an entire function.[22]

Euler also developed a convergent product approximation for the non-integer factorials, which can be seen to
be equivalent to the formula for the gamma function above:

However, this formula does not provide a practical means of computing the pi function or the gamma function,
as its rate of convergence is slow.

Applications of the gamma function

The volume of an n-dimensional hypersphere of radius R is

Factorial in the complex plane

Representation through the gamma function

allows evaluation of factorial of complex
argument. Equilines of amplitude and phase of
factorial are shown in figure. Let

Several levels of constant modulus (amplitude) ρ

and constant phase φ are shown. The grid covers
the range −3 ≤ x ≤ 3, −2 ≤ y ≤ 2, with unit steps.
The scratched line shows the level φ = ±π.

Thin lines show intermediate levels of constant

modulus and constant phase. At the poles at
every negative integer, phase and amplitude are
not defined. Equilines are dense in vicinity of
singularities along negative integer values of the
argument. Amplitude and phase of factorial of complex argument

For |z| < 1, the Taylor expansions can be used:

The first coefficients of this expansion are

 n gn Approximation

0 1 1
1 −γ −0.577 215 6649

2 π2 γ2 0.989 055 9955

12
+ 2
2 3
3 − ζ(3)
3
π
− 12 − γ6 −0.907 479 0760

where γ is the Euler–Mascheroni constant and ζ is the Riemann zeta function. Computer algebra systems such
as SageMath can generate many terms of this expansion.

Approximations of the factorial

For the large values of the argument, the factorial can be approximated through the integral of the digamma
function, using the continued fraction representation. This approach is due to T. J. Stieltjes (1894). Writing
z! = eP(z) where P(z) is

Stieltjes gave a continued fraction for p(z):

The first few coefficients an are[23]

n an
1
0 12
1
1 30
53
2 210
195
3 371
22 999
4 22 737
29 944 523
5 19 733 142
109 535 241 009
6 48 264 275 462

There is a misconception that ln z! = P(z) or ln Γ(z + 1) = P(z) for any complex z ≠ 0. Indeed, the relation
through the logarithm is valid only for a specific range of values of z in the vicinity of the real axis, where
−π < Im(Γ(z + 1)) < π. The larger the real part of the argument, the smaller the imaginary part should be.
However, the inverse relation, z! = eP(z), is valid for the whole complex plane apart from z = 0. The
convergence is poor in the vicinity of the negative part of the real axis; it is difficult to have good convergence of
any approximation in the vicinity of the singularities. When |Im z| > 2 or Re z > 2, the six coefficients above
are sufficient for the evaluation of the factorial with complex double precision. For higher precision more
coefficients can be computed by a rational QD scheme (Rutishauser's QD algorithm).[24]

Non-extendability to negative integers

The relation n! = n × (n − 1)! allows one to compute the factorial for an integer given the factorial for a smaller
integer. The relation can be inverted so that one can compute the factorial for an integer given the factorial for a
larger integer:

However, this recursion does not permit us to compute the factorial of a negative integer; use of the formula to
compute (−1)! would require a division of a nonzero value by zero, and thus blocks us from computing a
factorial value for every negative integer. Similarly, the gamma function is not defined for zero or negative
integers, though it is defined for all other complex numbers.

Factorial-like products and functions

There are several other integer sequences similar to the factorial that are used in mathematics:

Double factorial

The product of all the odd integers up to some odd positive integer n is called the double factorial of n, and
denoted by n!!.[25] That is,

For example, 9!! = 1 × 3 × 5 × 7 × 9 = 945.

The sequence of double factorials for n = 1, 3, 5, 7,... starts as

1, 3, 15, 105, 945, 10 395, 135 135,... (sequence A001147 in the OEIS)

Double factorial notation may be used to simplify the expression of certain trigonometric integrals,[26] to
provide an expression for the values of the gamma function at half-integer arguments and the volume of
hyperspheres,[27] and to solve many counting problems in combinatorics including counting binary trees with
labeled leaves and perfect matchings in complete graphs.[25][28]

Multifactorials

A common related notation is to use multiple exclamation points to denote a multifactorial, the product of
integers in steps of two (n!!), three (n!!!), or more (see generalizations of the double factorial). The double
factorial is the most commonly used variant, but one can similarly define the triple factorial (n!!!) and so on.
One can define the k-tuple factorial, denoted by n!(k), recursively for positive integers as
In addition, similarly to 0! = 1!
1
= 1, one can define:

For sufficiently large n ≥ 1, the ordinary single factorial function is expanded through the multifactorial
functions as follows:

In the same way that n! is not defined for negative integers, and n!! is not defined for negative even integers,
n!(k) is not defined for negative integers divisible by k.

Primorial

The primorial of a natural number n (sequence A002110 in the OEIS), denoted n#, is similar to the factorial,
but with the product taken only over the prime numbers less than or equal to n. That is,

where p ranges over the prime numbers less than or equal to n. For example, the primorial of 11 is

Superfactorial

Neil Sloane and Simon Plouffe defined a superfactorial in The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (Academic
Press, 1995) to be the product of the first n factorials. So the superfactorial of 4 is

In general

Equivalently, the superfactorial is given by the formula

which is the determinant of a Vandermonde matrix.

The superfactorials can be extended to all complex numbers with the Barnes G-function, such that
for all positive integers n. The sequence of superfactorials starts (from n = 0) as

1, 1, 2, 12, 288, 34 560, 24 883 200, 125 411 328 000,... (sequence A000178 in the OEIS)

By this definition, we can define the k-superfactorial of n (denoted sfk(n)) as:

The 2-superfactorials of n are

1, 1, 2, 24, 6 912, 238 878 720, 5 944 066 965 504 000, 745 453 331 864 786 829 312 000 000,...
(sequence A055462 in the OEIS)

The 0-superfactorial of n is n.

Pickover’s superfactorial

In his 1995 book Keys to Infinity, Clifford Pickover defined a different function n$ that he called the
superfactorial. It is defined by

This sequence of superfactorials starts

(Here, as is usual for compound exponentiation, the grouping is understood to be from right to left:
c c
ab = a(b ).)
This operation may also be expressed as the tetration

or using Knuth's up-arrow notation as

Hyperfactorial

Occasionally the hyperfactorial of n is considered. It is written as H(n) and defined by

For n = 1, 2, 3, 4,... the values of H(n) are 1, 4, 108, 27 648,... (sequence A002109 in the OEIS).

The asymptotic growth rate is

where A = 1.2824... is the Glaisher–Kinkelin constant.[29] H(14) ≈ 1.8474 × 1099 is already almost equal to a
googol, and H(15) ≈ 8.0896 × 10116 is almost of the same magnitude as the Shannon number, the theoretical
number of possible chess games. Compared to the Pickover definition of the superfactorial, the hyperfactorial
grows relatively slowly.

The hyperfactorial function can be generalized to complex numbers in a similar way as the factorial function.
The resulting function is called the K-function.

See also
Alternating factorial
Bhargava factorial
Digamma function
Exponential factorial
Factorial number system
Factorion
List of factorial and binomial topics
Pochhammer symbol, which gives the falling or rising factorial
Subfactorial
Trailing zeros of factorial
Triangular number, the additive analogue of factorial

References

Citations
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2. Wilson, Robin; Watkins, John J.; Graham, Ronald (2013). Combinatorics: Ancient & Modern. Oxford
University Press. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-19-965659-2.
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4. Stedman 1677, pp. 6–9.
5. Stedman 1677, p. 8.
6. Higgins 2008, p. 12
7. Cheng, Eugenia (2017-03-09). Beyond Infinity: An expedition to the outer limits of the mathematical
universe. Profile Books. ISBN 9781782830818.
8. Conway, John H.; Guy, Richard (1998-03-16). The Book of Numbers ([Link]
bers0000conw). Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9780387979939.
9. Knuth, Donald E. (1997-07-04). The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms.
Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN 9780321635747.
10. "18.01 Single Variable Calculus, Lecture 37: Taylor Series" ([Link]
-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/lecture-notes/). MIT OpenCourseWare. Fall 2006. Archived ([Link]
[Link]/web/20121706133400/[Link]
-2006/lecture-notes/) from the original on 2018-04-26. Retrieved 2017-05-03.
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University Press. pp. 35–56. ISBN 9780521873420.
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doi:10.2307/3647856 ([Link] hdl:1854/LU-284957 ([Link]
54%2FLU-284957), MR 2024001 ([Link] see in particular
the inequality on p. 732 showing that the relative error is at most .
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ttps://[Link]/web/20180426001413/[Link] from the original
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[Link]). GNU MP Software Manual. Archived from the original ([Link]
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doi:10.1016/0196-6774(85)90006-9 ([Link]
17. Luschny, Peter. "Fast-Factorial-Functions: The Homepage of Factorial Algorithms" ([Link]
web/20050305083634/[Link] Archived from the
original ([Link] on 2005-03-05.
18. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham" ([Link]
[Link]/Biographies/[Link]), MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St
Andrews.
19. Weisstein, Eric W. [[Link] "Wilson's Theorem"] Check |url= value (help). MathWorld.
Retrieved 2017-05-17.
20. Bostock, Chandler & Rourke 2014, pp. 168.
21. Guy 2004, p. 346 ([Link]
22. Luschny, Peter. "Hadamard versus Euler – Who found the better Gamma function?" ([Link]
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Archived from the original ([Link]
l) on 2009-08-18.
23. "5.10" ([Link] Digital Library of Mathematical Functions. Archived ([Link]
g/web/20100529224939/[Link] from the original on 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2010-10-17.
24. Luschny, Peter. "On Stieltjes' Continued Fraction for the Gamma Function" ([Link]
10514230817/[Link] Archived from the
original ([Link] on 2011-05-14.
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[Link]/abs/0906.1317), Bibcode:2009arXiv0906.1317C ([Link]
1317C).
26. Meserve, B. E. (1948), "Classroom Notes: Double Factorials", The American Mathematical Monthly, 55 (7):
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rg/stable/2306136), MR 1527019 ([Link]
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Bostock, Linda; Chandler, Suzanne; Rourke, C. (2014-11-01), Further Pure Mathematics, Nelson Thornes,
ISBN 9780859501033
Graham, Ronald L.; Knuth, Donald E.; Patashnik, Oren (1988), Concrete Mathematics, Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-14236-8
Guy, Richard K. (2004), "E24 Irrationality sequences", Unsolved problems in number theory ([Link]
[Link]/books?id=1AP2CEGxTkgC) (3rd ed.), Springer-Verlag, ISBN 0-387-20860-7, Zbl 1058.11001 (ht
tps://[Link]/?format=complete&q=an:1058.11001)
Higgins, Peter (2008), Number Story: From Counting to Cryptography, New York: Copernicus, ISBN 978-1-
84800-000-1
Stedman, Fabian (1677), Campanalogia, London The publisher is given as "W.S." who may have been
William Smith, possibly acting as agent for the Society of College Youths, to which society the "Dedicatory"
is addressed.

Further reading
Hadamard, M. J. (1894), "Sur L'Expression Du Produit 1·2·3· · · · ·(n−1) Par Une Fonction Entière" ([Link]
[Link]/math/factorial/hadamard/[Link]) (PDF), Œuvres de Jacques Hadamard (in
French), Paris (1968): Centre National de la Recherche Scientifiques
Ramanujan, Srinivasa (1988), The Lost Notebook and Other Unpublished Papers, Springer Berlin, p. 339,
ISBN 3-540-18726-X

External links
Factorial (mathematics) ([Link] at the Encyclopædia
Britannica
"Factorial" ([Link] Encyclopedia of Mathematics,
EMS Press, 2001 [1994]
Weisstein, Eric W. "Factorial" ([Link] MathWorld.
Factorial ([Link] at PlanetMath.

Retrieved from "[Link]

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