2.5, due Monday Sep 25

Difficult:

The most difficult part of this section was understanding Sterling's approximation. I get that it's approximating the Gamma function, but formula 2.24 and 2.27, which they call the zeroth-order Stirling's formula and Sterling's approximation respectively, don't seem at all related to me. I am also really confused at the big Pi non-summation things (I don't see where that symbol has been defined in this book).

Application:

Because logarithms are so much smaller than actual factorials, etc, logs would be very useful in many calculations, whether in conjunction with factorials or another context. However, calculating the gamma function would be resource intensive. Honestly, it's really impressive how much we've managed to find acceptable approximations that are usable and useful.

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