Leigh J. Halliwell wrote: > Dear Raul and J Forum: > > I was aware of the D. operator, and admire the solution. My only question > is how accurately D. performs numerical differentiation. Can I rely on > it, > or should I seek numerical methods for deriving the gamma functions? > Thanks. >
I would investigate numerical methods. The D. operator does an excellent job in simple cases. However, I assume you are looking for a specific accuracy, and you need to be sure the method works to that. Numerical differentiation is unstable in any case (using a very small value of dx can make things worse), and the gamma function grows very rapidly. There is a lot of literature on computing this and other special functions, and I suggeset you look into it. Best wishes, John ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
