A Catalan constant inspired integral odyssey

2020 ◽  
Vol 104 (561) ◽  
pp. 449-459
Author(s):  
Seán M. Stewart

There is a rich and seemingly endless source of definite integrals that can be equated to or expressed in terms of Catalan's constant. Denoted by G and defined by $${\rm{G}} = \sum\limits_{n = 0}^\infty {{{{{\left( { - 1} \right)}^n}} \over {{{\left( {2n + 1} \right)}^2}}} = 1 - {1 \over {{3^2}}} + {1 \over {{5^2}}} \ldots = 0.915\,965\,594 \ldots \,\,,} $$ Scott in [1] quipped that this constant seemed almost as useful as the more widely known Euler–Mascheroni constant γ, particularly in the evaluation of definite integrals. And like γ, Catalan's constant continues to remain one of the most inscrutable constants in mathematics where the question concerning its irrationality is not settled.

2017 ◽  
Vol 101 (550) ◽  
pp. 38-49
Author(s):  
Graham Jameson ◽  
Nick Lord

Catalan's constant, named after E. C. Catalan (1814-1894) and usually denoted by G, is defined byIt is, of course, a close relative ofThe numerical value is G ≈ 0.9159656. It is not known whether G is irrational: this remains a stubbornly unsolved problem. The best hope for a solution might appear to be the method of Beukers [1] to prove the irrationality of ζ (2) directly from the series, but it is not clear how to adapt this method to G.


1930 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. N. Bailey

The integralwhere n is a positive integer, was obtained recently by Van der Pol by operational methods.


1968 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 1033-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Ragab ◽  
M. A. Simary

Little is known about definite integrals for the Whittaker functions. The object of this paper is to establish such results and the following formulae are establishedwhere the symbol means that in the expression following it i is to be replaced by –i and the two expressions are to be added.


1931 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 189-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. T. Whittaker

It is well known that in many cases the solutions of a linear differential equation can be expressed as definite integrals, different solutions of the same equation being represented by integrals which have the same integrand, but different paths of integration. Thus, the various solutions of the hypergeometric differential equationcan be represented by integrals of the typethe path of integration being (for one particular solution) a closed circuit encircling the point t = 0 in the positive direction, then the point t = 1 in the positive direction, then the point t = 0 in the negative direction, and lastly the point t = 1 in the negative direction; or (for another particular solution) an arc in the t-plane joining the points t = 1 and t = ∞.


Author(s):  
Robert Reynolds ◽  
Allan Stauffer

We present a method using contour integration to derive definite integrals and their associated infinite sums which can be expressed as a special function. We give a proof of the basic equation and some examples of the method. The advantage of using special functions is their analytic continuation which widens the range of the parameters of the definite integral over which the formula is valid. We give as examples definite integrals of logarithmic functions times a trigonometric function. In various cases these generalizations evaluate to known mathematical constants such as Catalan’s constant and π


1880 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 271-271
Author(s):  
Tait

This paper deals with various formulæ of definite integration which are, in general, put into forms in which they enable us with great ease to sum a number of infinite series. As a simple example of such a formula the following may be given:—From this it is easy to deduce innumerable results, of which the annexed are some of the more immediate.


1931 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. N. Bailey

1. In a recent paper I have given some definite integrals involving Legendre functions which, as a limiting case, give known results involving Bessel functions. In another paper I have shown how some integrals involving Bessel functions can be obtained from Bateman's integraland the well-known expansion


1934 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. G. Shabde

A few definite integrals involving more than two Legendre functions in the integrand have been considered by Ferrers, Adams, Dougall, Nicholson and Bailey. We take for example the following integrals.


1931 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 220-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. O. Kermack ◽  
W. H. McCrea

In Part I it has been shown that, given a contact transformation, two equationscan be derived which lead to the compatible differential equationsIt will be shown in the present communication that the necessary and sufficient condition that (1.3), (1.4) should be compatible is thatregarded as an equation in the non-commutative variables q, p which themselves satisfy the conditionWe shall call functions satisfying this condition conjugate functions. From this point of view the method employed by Professor Whittaker in his original paper, involving the use of a contact transformation,, was really a particular method of generating conjugate functions. This powerful method may be supplemented and extended by the other methods developed in the following pages.


2016 ◽  
Vol 100 (548) ◽  
pp. 266-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Lord

One of the many definite integrals that Euler was the first to evaluate was(1)He did this, almost as an afterthought, at the end of his short, seven-page paper catalogued as E675 in [1] and with the matter-of-fact title,On the values of integrals from x = 0 to x = ∞. It is a beautiful Euler miniature which neatly illustrates the unexpected twists and turns in the history of mathematics. For Euler's derivation of (1) emerges as the by-product of a solution to a problem in differential geometry concerning the clothoid curve which he had first encountered nearly forty years earlier in his paper E65, [1]. As highlighted in the recentGazettearticle [2], E675 is notable for Euler's use of a complex number substitution to evaluate a real-variable integral. He used this technique in about a dozen of the papers written in the last decade of his life. The rationale for this manoeuvre caused much debate among later mathematicians such as Laplace and Poisson and the technique was only put on a secure footing by the work of Cauchy from 1814 onwards on the foundations of complex function theory, [3, Chapter 1]. Euler's justification was essentially pragmatic (in agreement with numerical evidence) and by what Dunham in [4, p. 68] characterises as his informal credo, ‘Follow the formulas, and they will lead to the truth.’ Smithies, [3, p. 187], contextualises Euler's approach by noting that, at that time, ‘a function was usually thought of as being defined by an analytic expression; by the principle of the generality of analysis, which was widely and often tacitly accepted, such an expression was expected to be valid for all values, real or complex, of the independent variable’. In this article, we examine E675 closely. We have tweaked notation and condensed the working in places to reflect modern usage. At the end, we outline what is, with hindsight, needed to make Euler's arguments watertight: it is worth noting that all of his conclusions survive intact and that the intermediate functions of one and two variables that he introduces in E675 remain the key ingredients for much subsequent work on these integrals.


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