Roughly speaking, in mathematics, specifically in the areas of combinatorics and special functions, a q-analog of a theorem, identity or expression is a generalization involving a new parameter q that returns the original theorem, identity or expression in the limit as q → 1. Typically, mathematicians are interested in q-analogues that arise naturally, rather than in arbitrarily contriving q-analogues of known results. The earliest q-analog studied in detail is the basic hypergeometric series, which was introduced in the 19th century.
q-analogs find applications in a number of area...