On a certain recurrence relation

liberalkid
April 5, 2011

We define a recurrence relation f on the powers of 2 to the natural numbers by:

f (1) = 6
f (2k ) = 2k · f (2k−1 )2 .

In order to analyze the recurrence a natural thing to do would be to attempt to unwind, as it were
f (2k ), which we may do as follows:

f (2K ) = 2k f (2k−1 )2
= 2k (2k−1 f (2k−2 )2 )2
= 2k (2k−1 (2k−2 f (2k−3 )2 )2 )2
= 2k (2k−1 (· · · f (1)2 . . . )2 .

Then it is apparent that f (2k ) = 6i 2j for some i, j. It is not hard to see that we repeat k times
before reaching f (1), so we will square 6, k times. That is we will raise 6 to the 2k power so i = 2k .
Finding j is a bit more complicated, observe though that if we focus on the exponent of the powers
of 2 it is slightly more clear. First we have 2k or in terms of exponent 20 · k then we have (2k−1 )2
or in terms of the exponent 21 · (k − 1). Next (2k−2 )4 or 22 · (k − 2), then as we have suggestively
written
k−1
X
j= 2i (k − i).
i=0

We may solve this in multiple ways, which we leave as an exercise to the reader. But note that j is
the k + 1 eulerian number.