Bruno,
I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you and ashamed to admit that I'm "throwing in the towel". This is an idiom used in professional boxing; when a coach decides that his fighter can't take anymore punishment, he ends the fight by throwing a towel into the ring. I simply don't have the sort of mind that takes to juggling letters, numbers and symbols in increasingly fine-grained, complex arrangements. I think that in any endeavor, when we struggle towards a goal, there should be some satisfaction...some sense of accomplishment...in each step along the way. But in this quest, I find each step to be difficult and unrewarding in and of itself. Sometimes the goal is so compelling that we force ourselves to overcome huge impediments to reach it; but in this case, I already know what the goal is, and I am only motivated by the desire to understand how it is proven. Well, I must be content to leave verification of the proof to people who are far better able than I to follow its intricacies. I trust they have checked it accurately and will point out inconsistencies in this open forum if such exist. Meanwhile, I'm happy to take it on faith. I shall certainly continue to lurk here gleaning what I can from the philosophical debates whose endless probing of the foundations of existence is a source of constant fascination. Best,
marty a.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruno Marchal" <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 3:47 AM
Subject: Re: The seven step series
>
>
> On 21 Aug 2009, at 01:24, meekerdb .domain.name.hidden wrote:
>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Bruno Marchal<marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I give the solution of the first of the last exercises.
>> ...
>>> This motivates the definition of the following function from N to N,
>>> called factorial.
>>> factorial(0) = 1, and factorial(n) = n*(n-1)*(n-2)*(n-3) * ... *1, if
>>> is n is different from 0.
>>>
>>> Note this: if n is different from 0, for each n we have that
>>> fact(n) =
>>> n*fact(n).
>>
>> Of course you meant fact(n)=n*fact(n-1).
>
>
> Yes, indeed.
>
> Note that later we will see stronger form of recursion, but here it is
> just a "typo" mistake.
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>
> >
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Received on Fri Aug 21 2009 - 10:22:51 PDT