More weird behaviour in Gosper and nusum (maxima does not know enough about factorials)
Subject: More weird behaviour in Gosper and nusum (maxima does not know enough about factorials)
From: Michel Van den Bergh
Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:45:01 +0100
>
> The function you want is minfactorial:
>
> (%i1) load(zeilberger)$
> (%i2) (k+1)! - k!$
> (%i3) minfactorial(%);
> (%o3) (k+1)*k!-k!
> (%i4) AntiDifference(%, k);
> Dependent equations eliminated: (1)
> (%o4) ((k+1)*k!-k!)/k
> (%i5) ratsimp(%);
> (%o5) k!
Ok very nice!! But why do I need to know this? Why can't zeilberger (or
closed_form) do this
by default....?
I am thinking of the new user which does a "trivial" exercise which
fails rather spectacularly...
Michel