Stirling numbers of the second kind count the number of ways to partition a set of n elements into k nonempty subsets. They are denoted by or . The sum
is the nth Bell number.
Using falling factorials, we can characterize the Stirling numbers of the second kind by the identity
Read more about this topic: Stirling Number
Famous quotes containing the words stirling, numbers and/or kind:
“Oh, if thy pride did not our joys control,
What world of loving wonders shouldst thou see!
For if I saw thee once transformed in me,
Then in thy bosom I would pour my soul;”
—William Alexander, Earl O Stirling (1580?–1640)
“Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made—no matter how indirectly—to numbers, proclamation is then and there made, that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet, enveloping presence, who shall dare to come in?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
““When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the fellow back,” he said.
“I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
‘If he left then,’ I said, ‘that ended it.’
What good is he? Who else will harbor him
At his age for the little he can do?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)