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Collatz Conjecture, An Intuitive Approach

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

4 10 16 22 28 34 40 46 52 58 64 70 76 82 88 94

2 5 8 11 14 17 20 23 26 29 32 35 38 41 44 47

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22

2 5 8 11

1 4

Above we started from the list of the odd numbers as our first line.
Tripled these and subtracted 1 in the second line and then halved this value line by line till we
obtained an odd value in every column.
The third line had the very simple rule that every second member had the same parity.
The first, third and so on became evens while the second, fourth and so on became odds.
These third line values of course were all bigger than the original odd number in the column.
Then in our fourth line the every second even values got halved again which thus went under
the original odd value.

All this looks really simple and the start reminds us to the well known alternation of the odds as
4k + 1 and 4k – 1 types that has been used for many number theoretical results.
Most famous is Fermat’s Christmas Theorem that split the primes by this form and observed
that the 4k + 1 and only these are square sums, in fact uniquely.
Something is very peculiar about this theorem’s solution that came much later than Fermat.
Namely, that the big new vision about the square sums in general didn’t quite resolve Fermat’s
original observation.
This new vision is called the Gaussian integers and they are the grid points of the plane.
The grandest result immediately following from the vision is that the factors of a simple square
sum are themselves square sums. Simple, meaning relative prime members.
This very surprising result of course offers a way to see the 4k + 1 form by showing that every
such form prime is a factor of a simple square sum. But to find such bigger square sums for
these primes is pretty ad hoc. The best choice in my opinion is offered by Euler’s criterion and I
show this in the article “Square Prime Remainders”.
I also show a surprising elementary approach as appendix in the article “Square Sums”.
This little mystery is almost a prelude to our present much bigger mystery.
Now the situation is seemingly simpler, we only care about the odds in general. No primes at all.
And indeed regarding them as 4k  1 , our third line is:

3(4k  1)  1 12k  4
= = 6k + 2 or 12k  2 = 6k – 1 So indeed even or odd alternating.
2 2 2

And now to make the mystery even deeper, let’s examine what happens if we not add rather
subtract 1 from the triples of the odds:
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1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

2 8 14 20 26 32 38 44 50 56 62 68 74 80 86 92

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46

2 5 8 11 14 17 20 23

1 4 7 10

2 5

The third line became 1 less than before so the alternation remained and we can see this in
abstract again by:

3(4k  1)  1 12k  2
= = 6k + 1 or 12k  4 = 6k – 2.
2 2 2

Everything is like a clockwork! So primitive and predictable again.

But now in this table let’s go back from the bottom final odds to the same top ones and go down
again and again!
The first column is the instant loop: 1 – 2 – 1. The second goes back to this loop again.
The third goes into the fourth that returns so we encountered a new loop:
5 – 14 – 7 – 20 – 10 – 5.

Observe that the third line odd final values are bigger while the fourth, once halved values are
already smaller than the top original values and so the return directions will be backwards or
forward, alternating by the columns as a sequence. And thus if the bottom values were not
correlated to the starts beyond the observed trivial law of the third line then in one continued
return process also the back and forward jumps were alternating in average.
So the encounter of loops is very expectable.
But furthermore, due to the repeated halvings the back jumps are usually bigger so the return to
1 in all other cases than the loops was also expectable.
The next loop by the way is:

17–50 – 25 –74 – 37–110 –55 –164 – 82 – 41 –122 – 61 –182 – 91 – 272 –136 – 68 – 34 –17

Amazingly, no more loops have been discovered!

But now let’s return to our original 3n + 1 table and see the returns there.
The first column is again an instant loop: 1 – 4 – 2 – 1.
And here no other loops have been found at all!

Why are only these four loops in the two tables together? That’s the big mystery!

A smaller mystery is to find a proof that the jumps can not increase forever.
We saw this to be likely by the bigger backward jump argument for an average start but not
proven for all starts.
A third mystery is whether the big mystery and the smaller one correlate or not.
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Now a little food for thought.
Let’s write our numbers in base 2 like: 1001110100.
The divisions by 2 to make a number odd is now a simple cutting off all tail zeros.
From the above we would get 10011101 a “1 to 1” sequence anything between.

So the odd numbers are simply “1 to 1” binary texts with anything between.

Instead of multiplying by 3 and adding 1, we can multiply by 2, add 1 and also add the
number again. Multiplying by 2 is of course just placing a 0 at the end.
So with the adding of the 1 we simply have to add a 1 to the end: 100111011.

The only non trivial alteration is calculating the sum 100111011 + 10011101.
Or rather: 100111011
10011101
??????????

The last digit of the result is definitely 0.

If there is more at the end it’s even better because we’ll cut these off and start again.
The claim is that our “1 to 1” texts will become 1.
Observe that these texts can only grow if this addition overflows.
Indeed, we only added one 1 and will definitely cut off one zero.
And overflow comes about if and only if in the extended number the first 11 is such that there
is no 00 before. This might even sound as an instant solution.
But if you follow it through you’ll see differently!