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)
“The barriers of conventionality have been raised so high, and so strangely cemented by long existence, that the only hope of overthrowing them exists in the union of numbers linked together by common opinion and effort ... the united watchword of thousands would strike at the foundation of the false system and annihilate it.”
—Mme. Ellen Louise Demorest 1824–1898, U.S. women’s magazine editor and woman’s club movement pioneer. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 203 (January 1870)
“This was the kind of man that was at home there; for, as near as I can learn, that has never been the residence, but rather the hunting-ground of the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)