Binomial Coefficient

The binomial coefficient is the number of ways of picking unordered outcomes from possibilities, also known as a combinati

or combinatorial number. The symbols and are used to denote a binomial coefficient, and are sometimes read as " choos

" therefore gives the number of k-subsets possible out of a set of distinct items. For example, The 2-subsets of are

six pairs , , , , , and , so .

The value of the binomial coefficient is given explicitly by

where denotes a factorial. Writing the factorial as a gamma function allows the binomial coefficient to be generalize
to non-integer arguments, including complex and . The binomial coefficient is implemented in Mathematica as Binomial[n, k].

The binomial coefficients form the rows of Pascal's triangle, and the number of lattice paths from the origin to a point )i

the binomial coefficient (Hilton and Pedersen 1991).

Plotting the binomial coefficient

in the -plane (Fowler 1996) gives the beautiful plot shown above, which has a very complicated graph for negative and and
therefore difficult to render using standard plotting programs.
For a positive integer , the binomial theorem gives

The finite difference analog of this identity is known as the Chu-Vandermonde identity. A similar formula holds for negative intege

There are a number of elegant binomial sums.

The binomial coefficients satisfy the identities

As shown by Kummer in 1852, if is the largest power of a prime that divides , where and are nonnegative integers
then is the number of carries that occur when is added to in base (Graham et al. 1989, Exercise 5.36, p. 245; Ribenboim 19

Vardi 1991, p. 68). Kummer's result can also be stated in the form that the exponent of a prime dividing is given by the num
of integers for which

(
where denotes the fractional part of . This inequality may be reduced to the study of the exponential sums
where is the Mangoldt function. Estimates of these sums are given by Jutila (1974, 1975), but recent improvements have be
made by Granville and Ramare (1996).

R. W. Gosper showed that

for all primes, and conjectured that it holds only for primes. This was disproved when Skiena (1990) found it also holds for the
composite number . Vardi (1991, p. 63) subsequently showed that is a solution whenever is a Wieferich p
and that if with is a solution, then so is . This allowed him to show that the only solutions for composite
are 5907, , and , where 1093 and 3511 are Wieferich primes.

Consider the binomial coefficients , the first few of which are 1, 3, 10, 35, 126, ... (Sloane's A001700). The
generating function is

These numbers are squarefree only for , 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 36, ... (Sloane's A046097), with no others known. It turns out th
is divisible by 4 unless belongs to a 2-automatic set , which happens to be the set of numbers whose binary representatio
contain at most two 1s: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18, ... (Sloane's A048645). Similarly, is divisible by 9 unless
belongs to a 3-automatic set , consisting of numbers for which the representation of in ternary consists entirely of 0s and 2
(except possibly for a pair of adjacent 1s; D. Wilson, A. Karttunen). The initial elements of are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
18, 19, 21, 22, 27, ... (Sloane's A051382). If is squarefree, then must belong to . It is very probable that is fini
but no proof is known. Now, squares larger than 4 and 9 might also divide , but by eliminating these two alone, the only poss
for are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 18, 33, 34, 36, 40, 64, 66, 192, 256, 264, 272, 513, 514, 516, 576 768, 1026, 1056, 230
16392, 65664, 81920, 532480, and 545259520. All of these but the last have been checked (D. Wilson), establishing that there a
no other such that is squarefree for .

Erdos showed that the binomial coefficient with is a power of an integer for the single case (Le Lionna

1983, p. 48). Binomial coefficients are squares when is a triangular number, which occur for , 6, 35, 204, 11
6930, ... (Sloane's A001109). These values of have the corresponding values , 9, 50, 289, 1682, 9801, ... (Sloane's A0524

The binomial coefficients are called central binomial coefficients, where is the floor function, although the subset of

coefficients is sometimes also given this name. Erdos and Graham (1980, p. 71) conjectured that the central binomial

coefficient is never squarefree for , and this is sometimes known as the Erdos squarefree conjecture. Sárkozy's theorem

(Sárkozy 1985) provides a partial solution which states that the binomial coefficient is never squarefree for all sufficiently la
(Vardi 1991). Granville and Ramare (1996) proved that the only squarefree values are and 4. Sander (1992) subseque

showed that are also never squarefree for sufficiently large as long as is not "too big."

For , , and distinct primes, then the function (◇) satisfies

(
(Vardi 1991, p. 66).

Most binomial coefficients with have a prime factor , and Lacampagne et al. (1993) conjecture that this inequa
is true for all , or more strongly that any such binomial coefficient has least prime factor or with the

exceptions , , , for which , 19, 23, 29 (Guy 1994, p. 84).

The binomial coefficient (mod 2) can be computed using the XOR operation XOR , making Pascal's triangle mod 2 very eas
construct.

Sondow (2005) and Sondow and Zudilin (2006) noted the inequality

for a positive integer and a real number.