Cornelius Lanczos' mysterious formula for the Gamma function
by
Prof.W. Casselman(University of British Columbia, Canada)
→
Asia/Kolkata
AG-66 (Colaba Campus)
AG-66
Colaba Campus
Description
In 1964, Cornelius Lanczos proposed entirely without proof a new kind of asymptotic expansion of the Gamma function, very different from tirling's formula and much more mysterious. In his 2004 UBC thesis a former student of mine, Glen Pugh, derived Lanczos' formula and uncovered some of the most peculiar phenomena I have ever seen in the behaviour of asymptotic expansions. I am not aware that anyone has explained rigourously what is going on.