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From: rbj@icst-cmr.arpa (Root Boy Jim)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re:  LPow correction
Message-ID: <1611@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 24-Jun-86 00:13:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1611
Posted: Tue Jun 24 00:13:31 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jun-86 08:30:27 EDT
Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA
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	Jim Cottrell pointed out to me that 0^0 should be 1, not 0
	as I had it in my posted LPow() function.  I thought I had
	a reason for making it 0, but since I'm unable to reconstruct
	that line of reasoning, and *especially* since I can show
	(using l'Hospital's rule) that
		limit of x^x as x->0+ is precisely 1,

I hadn't thought of it that way. That's what's neat about the truth,
it has so many ways of making itself known! As I also mentioned,
infinite series often generate aught to the naught and call it unity.
As you well know, zero factorial is also one.
BTW, 'tis          ^
		l'Hopital's Rule (the caret is a circumflex accent).
The Eagles even wrote a song about it:
"Take it to the Limit One More Time" (original joke).

	I don't care what APL does.

When it applies to math you do. If you have one handy you might try
expanding the power series for e^x:

infinity ->	<X>
		---	  n
	 x	\	 x		(I definitely didn't use eqn :-)
	e   =	/	---
		---	 n!
		n=0

My favorite one liner is `1 + +/ % ! i 12' (where `%' is DIVIDE (reciprocal)
and `i' is IOTA). Twelve is a good approximation to infinity here. Anyway,
you can see what happens when x is zero. All the other terms flake out
except the first, which has to be one. Isn't this fun?

One last piece of humor: My favorite Star Trek line was when Spock said
(of some physical phenomenon) "It has increased in strength by
one to the fourth power!" He obviously didn't have your function.

	Take care now,

	(Root Boy) Jim Cottrell		<rbj@icst-cmr.arpa>
	Gibble, Gobble, we ACCEPT YOU - - -

P.S. That was Zippy's approcksimation to the Gobble Gobble I owe you.
			   /^\
			    |___I used up all my x's in previous postings