Question

I'm lost, someone teach me the collatz conjecture.

Answer 1

on a basic level:

the conjecture states that you can take any positive integer n, and

1. if n is even, divide it by 2
2. if n is odd, take 3n + 1

and keep repeating this with your result. you will eventually reach 1 (technically you get stuck in a loop of 4 2 1 over and over again, but 1 is considered the end)

it's still a conjuecture because there's no formalized, complete proof (people have made many attempts but there's always been some flaw with it), but it's been demonstrated to be true for every positive integer tested so far.

Answer 2

two general approaches toward solving this problem:

1. develop a general rule that proves the conjecture true for all positive integers
2. find some positive integer n that breaks the rule (apparently they've tested up to 2^68 so far without any exceptions to the conjecture)

Answer 3

Thanks bro 😎