Can MAXIMA do finite calculus?



wang yin <shredder@sohu.com> writes:

> If I express "k to the m falling" as k!/(k-m)! in nusum, I
> get:
> 
> (C1)  nusum(k!/(k-m)!,k,0,n);
> 
>                            (n + 1)!             m
> (D1)                   ---------------- + --------------
>                        (m + 1) (n - m)!   (m + 1) (- m)!
> 
> How can I abtain the desired result
> 
> "n to the (m+1) falling"/(m+1) ?


But Maxima's result is correct.  I assume that you actually want to
calculate

(C1) nusum(k!/(k-m)!,k,m,n);
				   (n + 1)!
(D1) 			       ----------------
			       (m + 1) (n - m)!

for n>=m>=0.  This result is (n+1 to the m+1 falling)/(m+1), which is
easily proven to be correct by induction wrt. n for each fixed m (you
might prefer to introduce first a new summation index l=k-m instead).
Note that the result you got is also correct since 1/(- m)! =
(1/gamma)(1-m) = 0 for an integer m>=1.  Your original sum also
contains such terms in general.

Wolfgang