Question

The Collatz conjecture is one of the most famous unsolved mathematical problems, because it's so simple, you can explain it to a primary-school-aged kid, and they'll probably be intrigued enough to try and find the answer for themselves.

So here's how it goes: pick a number, any number.

If it's even, divide it by 2. If it's odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. Now repeat those steps again with your new number. Eventually, if you keep going, you'll eventually end up at 1 every single time (try it for yourself, we'll wait).

As simple as it sounds, it actually works. But the problem is that even though mathematicians have shown this is the case with millions of numbers, they haven't found any numbers out there that won't stick to the rules.

"It's possible that there's some really big number that goes to infinity instead, or maybe a number that gets stuck in a loop and never reaches 1," explains Thompson. "But no one has ever been able to guess it

Answer 1

its math this time

Answer 2

What is the question asking?

Answer 3

This looks more like a puzzle than a question.

Answer 4

The number doesn't exist until it has been found. So any number you get to start with, you will end up with 1, as everyone else did.

Answer 5

oh