Generating Functions : Powerful Tools for Recurrence Relations. Hermite Polynomials Generating Function

Abstract: In this report we will plunge down in the fascinating world of the generating functions. Generating functions showcase the "power of power series", giving more depth to the word "power" in power series. We start off small to get a good understanding of the generating function and what it does. Also, off course, explaining why it works and why we can do some of the things we do with them. We will see alot of examples throughout the text that helps the reader to grasp the mathematical object that is the generating function. We will look at several kinds of generating functions, the main focus when we establish our understanding of these will be the "ordinary power series" generating function ("ops") that we discuss before moving on to the "exponential generating function" ("egf"). During our discussion on ops we will see a "first time in literature" derivation of the generating function for a recurrence relation regarding "branched coverings". After finishing the discussion regarding egf we move on the Hermite polynomials and show how we derive their generating function. Which is a generating function that generates functions. Lastly we will have a quick look at the "moment generating function".