Gary Thomas wrote:
Except for calculating binomial coefficients for probability calculations or
closely related things. I can’t think of any reason to calculate large
factorials. In the case of binomial coefficients it is better to cancel out
some of the factors and avoid calculating the huge factorials. If the
numbers are large, the use of approximations is almost certainly a better
approach
A rule of thumb I was taught in the days when compute power was
expensive was that any factorial over 10! should be done using
Stirling’s approximation. I think that’s a reasonable strategy even
today.
–
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.net/
If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given
rabbits fire.