What is an intuitive explanation of Stirling

numbers of the second kind?

Specifically, what is the intuition behind the following
recurrence relation:
?
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Alon Amit, PhD in Mathematics; Mathcircler.

10 upvotes by Anurag Bishnoi (Ph.D. student in Mathematics at Ghent
University.), Igor Markov (MA in Mathematics, PhD in CS), Alvaro Martinez
Ramirez, (more)

Stirling numbers of the second kind (what an awful, awful name)

count partitions of labeled objects into unlabeled classes. For
example,
{1,4}, {2,3,5}
is a partitioning of {1,2,3,4,5} into two classes. The object names
do matter, so
{1,5}, {2,3,4}
is a different partition; but the classes themselves are
anonymous, so it doesn't matter which class we display first. The
last partitioning is the same as

{2,3,4}, {1,5}.

To understand the recurrence formula, we use the same trick

you'd use to understand the binomial recurrence . How do you
interpret that recurrence? Well, to pick objects out of
candidates, you can either pick candidate X (in which case you
just have to find other friends to join him, out of the remaining ),
or you don't (in which case you have to choose the full cadre of
candidates out of the other ).
It's the same thing with the SNOTSK. To partition objects into
classes, isolate one of them - Mr. X - and do one of two things:
put him in a partition of his own (you now have to partition the
other into classes), or don't put him in a partition of his own;
meaning, first partition the other guys into classes, and then
pick one of the classes and throw Mr. X in there. The first case
gives you Stirling of over , and the second case gives you times
Stirling of over (Sorry, I tried every method I know in LaTeX to
produce Stirling numbers and failed).
Written 23 Oct, 2013.