Take any whole number greater than one.

1. If the number is odd, multiply it by three and add one.
2. If it is even divide it by two.
2a. If the result is still even, continue to divide by two until the result is odd.
3. Continue steps 1 and 2 until you get the same number twice.

[For example starting with 9 -> 28 -> 14 -> 7 which is considered one iteration. The next iteration brings this to 11.]

What number(s) does this process terminate at?
What starting value less than 200 takes the most iterations to terminate?

Going up to 520,000,000, the highest number of iterations is 362, done by 268,549,803. This is of course, going until it equals 1, and not until it repeats the previous value.
Edited on January 20, 2006, 11:35 pm

Posted by Justin on 2006-01-19 14:01:40