The
-th Bell number
is equal to the number of ways in which
objects can be partitioned into non-empty subsets.
For example, because the set can be partitioned in
5 ways: , , , and
Two classical formulas
The first Bell numbers are
1, 2, 5, 15, 52, 203, 877, 4140, 21147, 115975, 678570, 4213597, 27644437, 190899322, 1382958545, 10480142147, 82864869804, 682076806159, 5832742205057, 51724158235372, 474869816156751.
Pictorial representation of remainders (mod 2, 3, ...,11) frequency. For a table of values and more details
click here
A graph displaying how many Bell numbers are multiples of the primes
p from 2 to 71. In black the ideal line 1/
p.