Let Sn denote the symmetric group of all permutations of [n], where [n] = {1, 2, . . . , n}. For π = π (1)π (2)· · · π (n) ∈
Sn, we define a descent to be an index i ∈ [n − 1] such that π (i) > π (i + 1). Let des (π ) be the number of descents of π.
Then the equation