In combinatorics, the nth Bell number, named after Eric Temple Bell, is the number of partitions of a set with n members, or equivalently, the number of equivalence relations on it. Starting with B0 = B1 = 1, the first few Bell numbers are:
- 1, 1, 2, 5, 15, 52, 203, 877, 4140, 21147, 115975, … (sequence A000110 in OEIS).
(See also breakdown by number of subsets/equivalence classes.)
Read more about Bell Number: Partitions of A Set, Properties of Bell Numbers, Asymptotic Limit and Bounds, Triangle Scheme For Calculating Bell Numbers, Prime Bell Numbers
Famous quotes containing the words bell and/or number:
“... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)