=R. William Gosper prod(uct )i(nte)g(r)al $.02 : P They're not terribly fruitful, since you can "do" I f(x) iff you can / / "do" | ln f(x), but sometimes the product limit seems the only way [...] /
Agreed. Yet in part, with apologies to Hamming, "The purpose of notation is insight, not answers." Couldn't one as well argue for eliminating big Pi in favor of big Sigma log? Prodigals are indicated, in moderation, just when they are more natural, simple, or promote interesting ideas (eg generalizing factoring polynomials by their roots to arbitrary functions). Side-bar: Bill, are you following the discussion of negative binomials on seqfan? I was thinking you might have interesting comments.