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All I see is a succession of function calls, over and over. What I don't see is where the actual calculations are carried out. The return statement does not say return 4 * 3, or return 3 * 2, or return 2 * 1, or whatever. It actually says return 4 * factorial(3). Then the function calls itself again, and it says return 3 * factorial(2). Then the function calls itself again, and it says return 2 * factorial(1). I realize that somehow it ends up as 4 * 3 * 2 * 1, but the code doesn't really look like that to me. How are the actual calculations carried out? All I see is just the function calling itself until we get down to where the value in number is 1, meaning the function terminates.
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