Salvatore Pincherle: the pioneer of the Mellin-Barnes integrals. (Q1874170)

This interesting paper on Mellin-Barnes integrals begins with an overview of the work of Pincherle on generalized hypergeometric functions and its relation to work of later authors. The duality principle relating linear differential equations to linear difference equations with rational polynomial coefficients is discussed. It is then shown how these early developments of Pincherle lead to a derivation of the linear differential equation and the Mellin-Barnes integral representation for Meijer's \(G\)-function.