0^0 question



On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Barton Willis wrote:

> I proposed a new Maxima function, call it pow, such that pow(x,0) 
> evaluates
> to 1 for all real or complex numbers x.  Such a function would be useful 
> inside summations, where we generally _do_ want 0^0 to evaluate to 1. 
>  
> Barton

Great idea. I'm aware of the difficulties, hence I did *not* propose to 
set 0^0=1. After all, I want to be able to deal with 0^x too...

In this light, sum(x^0,x,0,inf),x:0 giving 0 is probably correct. What I 
really want however is the constant term. Maybe sum should issue a 
warning?

Thank you,
Martin