School of Mathematics Colloquium

Cornelius Lanczos' mysterious formula for the Gamma function

by Prof. W. Casselman (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Thursday, March 7, 2013 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at Colaba Campus ( AG-66 )
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.