Main feature

For instance, to compute \[P(X = k) = \dfrac{\binom{K}{k}~\binom{N-K}{n-k}}{\binom{N}{n}} = \dfrac{K!~(N-K)!~n!~(N-n)!}{k!~(K-k)!~(n-k)!~(N-K-n+k)!~N!},\] you can use

f <- function(k, N, K, n) {
  ComputeDivFact(c(K, (N-K), n, (N-n)),
                 c(k, (K-k), (n-k), (N-K-n+k), N))
}
f(4, 50, 5, 10)
## [1] 0.003964583
f(5, 50, 5, 10)
## [1] 0.0001189375

You can check the results here.

Let us now check large numbers:

f(k = 1000, N = 15100, K = 5000, n = 3100)
## [1] 0.009003809

A direct approach would require computing factorial(15100), while factorial(100) = 9.332622e+157.

Implementation

This uses a Prime Factorization to simplify computations.

I code a number as follows, \[number = \prod i^{code[i]},\] or, which is equivalent, \[\log(number) = \sum code[i] \times \log(i).\] For example,

• \(5\) is coded as (0, 0, 0, 0, 1),
• \(5!\) is coded as (1, 1, 1, 1, 1),
• \(8!\) is coded as (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1).

So, to compute \(8! / 5!\), you just have to substract the code of \(5!\) from the code of \(8!\) which gives you (0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1).

Then there is the step of Prime Factorization:

Factorization by 2:

• it becomes (0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0) because \(8 = 4 \times 2\) and \(6 = 3 \times 2\),
• then it becomes (0, 4, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0) because \(4 = 2^2\).

This is already finished (this is a small example). You get that \(8! / 5! = 2^4 \times 3^1 \times 7^1\). Let us verify:

cat(sprintf("%s == %s", factorial(8) / factorial(5), 2^4 * 3 * 7))
## 336 == 336

Play with primes

You can also test if a number is a prime and get all prime numbers up to a certain number.