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Mostly it is based on convention, when one wants to define the quantity for example. An intuitive way to look at it is
counts the number of ways to arrange
distinct objects in a line, and there is only one way to arrange nothing.
In a combinatorial sense, refers to the number of ways of permuting
objects. There is exactly one way to permute 0 objects, that is doing nothing, so
.
There are plenty of resources that already answer this question. Also see:
Link
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_zero_factorial_equal_to_one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factorial#Definition
Yes, precisely there is a unique function (with empty graph), which happens to be a bijection (
). Note, that
is the number of bijections
.
For positive numbers the factorial function is defined as the product of all positive integers less or equal to
. To define
we need to "extend" the definition. Another way to define it is to notice that:
Pluging we get:
We need $0!$ to be defined as $1$ so that many mathematical formulae work. For example we would like $$n! = n \times (n-1)!$$ to work when $n=1,$ ie $1! = 1 \times 0!.$ Also we require that the formula for the number of ways of choosing $k$ objects from $n$ is valid for $k=n.$ ie $${n \choose k} = \frac{n!}{k!(n-k)!}$$ is valid when $k=n.$
Things need to work when we extend our definition of the factorial via the gamma function.
$$\Gamma(z) = \int\limits_0^\infty t^{z-1} e^{-t} \,\mathrm{d}t,\qquad \Re(z)>0.$$
The above gives $\Gamma(n)=(n-1)!$ and so we require $0!=1,$ since $\Gamma(1)=1.$
I'm not sure that there is anything to prove. I think it follows directly from the definition of factorial:
$$ n! := \prod_{k = 1}^n k$$
So if $n=0$ the right hand side is the empty product, which is $1$ by convention.
I understand 1!=1, but why 0! is still equal to 1?
Like 10/2- imagine a 10 square foot box, saying 10 divided by 2 is like saying “how many 2 square foot boxes fit in this 10 square foot box?” So the answer is 5.
But if you take the same box and ask “how many boxes that are infinitely small, or zero feet squared, can fit in the same box the answer would be infinity not “undefined”. So 10/0=infinity.
I understand why 2/0 can’t be 0 not only because that doesn’t make and since but also because it could cause terrible contradictions like 1=2 and such.
Ah math is so cool. I love infinity so if anyone wants to talk about it drop a comment.
Edit: thanks everyone so much for the answers. Keep leaving comments though because I’m really enjoying seeing it explained in different ways. Also it doesn’t seem like anyone else has ever been confused by this judging by the comment but if anyone is I really liked this video https://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra/x2f8bb11595b61c86:foundation-algebra/x2f8bb11595b61c86:division-zero/v/why-dividing-by-zero-is-undefined