SearchOnMath

Factorials apply only to nonnegative integers but can be extended to complex numbers with positive real parts using the Gamma function, \(\Gamma(n) = \int_0^\infty e^{-x}x^{n-1}dx\).

Another common definition of the exponential function to the natural basis, \(e^x\), comes from writing it as the series \(e^x = \sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{x^k}{k!}\).

Shannon's entropy, \(H(X) = -\sum_{x \in \mathbf{X}} p(x) \log p(x)\), measures how informative the mass function \(p\) is about the occurrence of the possible values of variable \(X\).