What follows in this sequence?

1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 5, 4, 5, ...

(In reply to Patterns.. by efflixi)

Actually when I first drafted my original reponse I thought that Nosher and I had some differences in our submissions.

Having been perplexed by the +'s and -'s in Patterns, I took time to try to understand it.

Now because I originally believed that Nosher and I had different concepts I could not see how efflixi could have a pattern that agreed with Nosher and yet agreed with me.

All three of us have analysed this sequence from a somewhat different perspective as our explanations reveal, but our answers are the same.

I would be intrigued if Erik O. has a completely different solution [eg 1,2,4  could be 1,2,4,8,16  or 1,2,4,7,11] or even how different his explanation maybe.

Great problem.

Posted by brianjn on 2005-08-04 12:36:20