Factorials on the 86
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Factorials on the 86
A few days ago I was fooling around with my 86's factorial function in
math class, when I found that putting numbers that weren't integers
didn't cause an error like on my 85 or my friend's 82. For example,
10.5! spits out 11899423.084 instead of ERROR 04 DOMAIN. I read in the
manual (pg. 294) that the calculator uses the "Gamma" function to
evaluate non-integers when doing factorials. My math teacher had no
clue what the manual is talking about and what the gamma function is.
What is the Gamma function and what does it do (as in what does the
number it give out mean)?
Also, I noticed that the 86 is very much faster when evaluating
factorials than the older 85. If you have an 85 and an 86, try
evaluating 449! at the same time on both calculators. The 86 gives back
an answer almost instantly, while the 85 takes a few seconds. Does the
86 use a different way to computer factorials?
Todd
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