TITLE: Why is there a derivative in this formula?
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: This is a very simple question. Why is Rademacher's formula presented with d/dx in it? 

Why not just "do" the derivative?

Then replace x with n? 
Is it so there is only one transcendental function in the formula? Or am I totally mis-reading this thing. I am slowly making my way through the original paper, but I wanted to just plug something in to it (calculate p(5)...for example) to see how it worked.

REPLY [3 votes]: AFAICT it just makes the formula look a little less forbidding, and also this is the representation of the function that comes out naturally through the proof of the formula (at least in some of its derivations). I don't think you should be reading too much into that.