March 5, 2010
#710: Collatz Conjecture explain
[Cueball sits in a chair at a desk, papers piled on top, writing furiously. Depicted above are apparently the writing, a series of nodes in various Collatz sequences (starting with 7, 21, 24, 29, 106, 176 and 256), all eventually leading back to 1.]
The Collatz Conjecture states that if you pick a number, and if it’s even divide it by two and if it’s odd multiply it by three and add one, and you repeat this procedure long enough, eventually your friends will stop calling to see if you want to hang out.