Leibniz was a smart guy :)
I prefer using the nCr notation, for some reasons it makes it more obvious to me very his theorem came from. The 'binomial coefficent' make me think he did some fancy stuff with Binomial theorem, when really its an easy relationship from the definition of nCr.
Comes from the fact then when we derive x^n repeatedly, the coefficents form into n(n-1)(n-2)(n-3)...look familiar :) I didnt help much lol
O wait I didnt answer anything the OP wanted.
Ok, let's try a simple function, like the one I gave above. f(x)=x^n Then f'(x)=nx^{n-1}. Again,
f''(x)=n(n-1)x^{n-2}. More: f^3(x)=n(n-1)(n-2)x^{n-3}. Can you start to see the pattern. With the i-th derivative, the power is n-i, and the co efficent is (n!)/(n-i+1)!.
The theorem generalises this into any f(x).
Holy wack, You know what I just realized.
Correct me if I am wrong, because I probably am, But...Using the Gamma Function, could we find non-integer derivatives? I can't imagine those in my head...please tell me that I could be onto something and no bodys done it before, maybe I could do a thesis on this :)