9 Feb
2012
9 Feb
'12
5:13 a.m.
Mark Janssen writes:
The math (in my world) simply decided that factorial(0)=1 as the convention of "an empty product" (Wikipedia::Factorial).
In modern math (ie, post-Eilenberg-Mac Lane), it's not really a convention (unlike, say, Euclid's Parallel Postulate); it's the only way to go if you want the idea of product to generalize. If you don't understand that, I have serious doubts that you know what you're talking about. If you do understand that, please take care to be more precise.