Re: pinhole Zero Factorial

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From: Paul Doherty (pauld@exploratorium.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 14 1999 - 18:01:38 PDT 

Message-Id: <l03110727b4049dc12b31@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:01:38 -0800
From: Paul Doherty <pauld@exploratorium.edu>
Subject: Re: pinhole Zero Factorial

Hi Ellen

One use of the factorial is to count the number of ways to arrange n objects.

for example 2 objects can be AB or BA,,2 ways and 2! = 2
and 3 can be ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CBA, CAB and 3! = 3

there is only one way to arrange one object A 1! = 1

and there is only one way to arrange 0 objects ( ) so 0! = 1

Paul D

Paul "But it is more complicated than that!" Doherty,
Senior Staff Scientist, The Exploratorium.
pauld@exploratorium.edu, www.exo.net/~pauld

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