# Displaying factorials

1. Sep 4, 2005

### CRGreathouse

This is really a TeX/LaTeX question, but I wasn't sure where to put it. (Sorry!)

I was looking at "Factoring Factorial n" (Guy, Amer. Math. Monthly Oct. '98) and became interested in looking at large factorials. Before I could really get started manipulating them I wanted a good way to store them so I'm not doing so much algebraic manipulation by hand. This was when I realized that there was no good way to display them -- I don't know how to make LaTeX wrap the expression in math mode.

Is there a good way to do that? Here's an example of what I have, in the tersest format I was able to manage:
$$1000!=2^{994}3^{498}5^{249}7^{164}11^{98}13^{81}17^{61}19^{54}23^{44}29^{35}31^{33}37^{27}41^{24}43^{23}47^{21}53^{18}59^{16}61^{16}67^{14}71^{14}73^{13}79^{12}83^{12}89^{11}97^{10}101^9103^9107^9109^9113^8127^7131^7137^7139^7149^6151^6157^6163^6167^5173^5179^5181^5191^5193^5197^5199^5211^4223^4227^4229^4233^4239^4241^4251^3257^3263^3269^3271^3277^3281^3283^3293^3307^3311^3313^3317^3331^3337^2347^2349^2353^2359^2367^2373^2379^2383^2389^2397^2401^2409^2419^2421^2431^2433^2439^2443^2449^2457^2461^2463^2467^2479^2487^2491^2499^2503\cdot509\cdot521\cdot523\cdot541\cdot547\cdot557\cdot563\cdot569\cdot571\cdot577\cdot587\cdot593\cdot599\cdot601\cdot607\cdot613\cdot617\cdot619\cdot631\cdot641\cdot643\cdot647\cdot653\cdot659\cdot661\cdot673\cdot677\cdot683\cdot691\cdot701\cdot709\cdot719\cdot727\cdot733\cdot739\cdot743\cdot751\cdot757\cdot761\cdot769\cdot773\cdot787\cdot797\cdot809\cdot811\cdot821\cdot823\cdot827\cdot829\cdot839\cdot853\cdot857\cdot859\cdot863\cdot877\cdot881\cdot883\cdot887\cdot907\cdot911\cdot919\cdot929\cdot937\cdot941\cdot947\cdot953\cdot967\cdot971\cdot977\cdot983\cdot991\cdot997$$

It won't even display here on the forums (at least not all of it), but you get the idea.

I'd like to find a method better than splitting it into lines manually with \noindent... :yuck:. Thanks!

2. Sep 13, 2005

### CRGreathouse

Is there a better place to post this to get a response?

3. Sep 13, 2005

### Hurkyl

Staff Emeritus
I posit that there's no real point in trying to display them.

That being said, there might be an example of exactly what you want to do in the LaTeX thread in the General Discussion part of General Physics.