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Conference rusure::math

Title:Mathematics at DEC
Moderator:RUSURE::EDP
Created:Mon Feb 03 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:2083
Total number of notes:14613

676.0. "Continuous version of x^x^...^x" by CLT::GILBERT (eager like a child) Sun Mar 15 1987 05:02

			      x			 f(x,n)
    Let f(x,1) = x, f(x,2) = x , and f(x,n+1) = x      .

    Just as n! can be extended to have an interpretation for non-integral n
    (i.e., the gamma function), find a reasonable extension to the above
    definition of f that is applicable to non-integers.
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676.1ENGINE::ROTHSun Mar 15 1987 16:3027
    I doubt that this is what you're really after but here's one way that
    will work, at least for 0 < x < e^(1/e):

    Fix x in the range above and form a sequence of values of f(x,n), n>0.
    Note that this sequence is geometrically convergent to a fixed point,
    say f(x).  Now in some small neighborhood of the fixed point,
    the error e[n] = |f(x)-f(x,n)| will be proportional to some a^-n,
    a > 1.  Thus, you can define a way of 'interpolating' between
    iterations in the vicinity of the fixed point, with as much accuracy
    as you desire, by taking n great enough.

    Suppose you want to interpolate the value of f(x,t) where k < t < k+1.
    Note that f(x,k) < f(x,t) < f(x,k+1).  Simply iterate f(x,k) into the
    neighborhood of the fixed point, geometrically interpolate between
    the images of f(x,k) and f(x,k+1) there, namely, f(x,n) and f(x,n+1),
    and work backwards to infer the value of f(x,t).

    I believe this can be shown to lead to a well defined analytic
    continuation of the function away from the integers, but don't
    know off-hand how to extend this past the upper limit.  But if
    this does lead to any analytic function, it is the official one.

    It may also be possible to expand the function in a power series
    about x = 1, since f(1,n) is identically 1, and you could perturb
    this in a series.

    - Jim
676.2My BRAIN Hurts!CHOVAX::YOUNGBack from the Shadows Again,Sat Mar 28 1987 17:054
    I'm having a lot of trouble even imagining an expressable continuous
    function that grows this rapidly withou being asymtoptic.
    
    --  Barry