Thursday, February 20, 2014

Why is 0 Factorial Equal to 1?

The factorial of k! is defined as the product of all positive integers from 1 to k. This means that k! can also be written as the following:

k! k*(k - 1)!

Here is an example:

k = 2
2*(2-1)! = 2

By using this rule, if we set k = 1, then the formula results in the following:

k = 1
1*(1-1)! = 1
1*(0)! = 1
0! = 1

Therefore, 0! is equal to 1.

1 comment:

  1. I was also curious about this concept of 0!=1 and I also drew the same conclusion when noticing the rule of n!=n(n-1)!. It's such a strange result when you typically expect it to be 0!=0 but here is the proof right before your eyes!

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