This talk is about a surprising trigonometric identity that arises in the theory of Euler's Gamma function. We'll review enough of the theory of the Gamma function to see how our trig identity can be derived from Gauss's multiplication formula. Then we'll look at a short, relatively elementary, proof using the geometry of the unit circle, cyclotomic polynomials and some basic algebra of complex numbers.

Please join us beforehand for pizza.
North Science 111 11:50am-12:08pm