Saturday, June 04, 2011 :::
You may have seen this number game before. Form a sequence of positive integers in the following manner:- Start the sequence with an arbitrary integer
- If the last number in the sequence is odd, get the next number by multiplying by three and adding one
- If the last number in the sequence is even, get the next number by halving
It has been conjectured that, regardless of the starting value, the sequence eventually gets to 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1... Now, a German mathematician claims to have a proof, though it doesn't seem to be public yet.Labels: recreational math
::: posted by Steven at 11:27 AM
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