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A006577 Number of halving and tripling steps to reach 1 in `3x+1' problem.
(Formerly M4323)
+0
51
0, 1, 7, 2, 5, 8, 16, 3, 19, 6, 14, 9, 9, 17, 17, 4, 12, 20, 20, 7, 7, 15, 15, 10, 23, 10, 111, 18, 18, 18, 106, 5, 26, 13, 13, 21, 21, 21, 34, 8, 109, 8, 29, 16, 16, 16, 104, 11, 24, 24, 24, 11, 11, 112, 112, 19, 32, 19, 32, 19, 19, 107, 107, 6, 27, 27, 27, 14, 14, 14, 102, 22 (list; graph; listen)
OFFSET

1,3

COMMENT

The 3x+1 or Collatz problem is as follows: start with any number n. If n is even, divide it by 2, otherwise multiply it by 3 and add 1. Do we always reach 1? This is a famous unsolved problem. It is conjectured that the answer is yes.

a(n) = A112695(n) + 2 for n > 2. - Reinhard Zumkeller (reinhard.zumkeller(AT)gmail.com), Apr 18 2008

REFERENCES

R. K. Guy, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, E16.

J. L. Simons, On the nonexistence of 2-cycles for the 3x+1 problem, Math. Comp. 75 (2005), 1565-1572.

N. J. A. Sloane and Simon Plouffe, The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, 1995 (includes this sequence).

LINKS

N. J. A. Sloane, Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..10000

Geometry.net, Links on Collatz Problem

Jason Holt, Log-log plot of first billion terms

Jason Holt, Plot of 1 billion values of the number of steps to drop below n (A060445), log scale on x axis

Jason Holt, Plot of 10 billion values of the number of steps to drop below n (A060445), log scale on x axis

A. Krowne, PlanetMath.org, Collatz problem

J. C. Lagarias, The 3x+1 problem and its generalizations, Amer. Math. Monthly, 92 (1985), 3-23.

J. C. Lagarias, How random are 3x+1 function iterates?, in The Mathemagician and the Pied Puzzler - A Collection in Tribute to Martin Gardner, Ed. E. R. Berlekamp and T. Rogers, A. K. Peters, 1999, pp. 253-266.

Mathematical BBS, Biblography on Collatz Sequence

P. Picart, Algorithme de Collatz et conjecture de Syracuse

E. Roosendaal, On the 3x+1 problem

G. Villemin's Almanach of Numbers, Cycle of Syracuse

Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics, Collatz Problem

Wikipedia, Collatz Conjecture

Index entries for sequences related to 3x+1 (or Collatz) problem

FORMULA

a(n) = A006666(n) + A006667(n)

EXAMPLE

a(5)=5 because the trajectory of 5 is (5,16,8,4,2,1).

PROGRAM

(PARI) a(n)=if(n<0, 0, s=n; c=0; while(s>1, s=if(s%2, 3*s+1, s/2); c++); c)

CROSSREFS

See A070165 for triangle giving trajectories of n = 1, 2, 3, ....

Cf. A125731, A127885, A127886, A008908, A112695.

A008884, A161021 ,A161022, A161023. [From Reinhard Zumkeller (reinhard.zumkeller(AT)gmail.com), Jun 03 2009]

Sequence in context: A074457 A072761 A127885 this_sequence A073652 A117029 A128475

Adjacent sequences: A006574 A006575 A006576 this_sequence A006578 A006579 A006580

KEYWORD

nonn,nice,easy

AUTHOR

N. J. A. Sloane (njas(AT)research.att.com), R. W. Gosper

EXTENSIONS

More terms from Larry Reeves (larryr(AT)acm.org), Apr 27 2001

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Last modified November 27 14:50 EST 2009. Contains 167570 sequences.


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