Number Theory Commons^™

Explorations Of The Collatz Conjecture (Mod M), Glenn Micah Jackson Jr

Honors College Theses

The Collatz Conjecture is a deceptively difficult problem recently developed in mathematics. In full, the conjecture states: Begin with any positive integer and generate a sequence as follows: If a number is even, divide it by two. Else, multiply by three and add one. Repetition of this process will eventually reach the value 1. Proof or disproof of this seemingly simple conjecture have remained elusive. However, it is known that if the generated Collatz Sequence reaches a cycle other than 4, 2, 1, the conjecture is disproven. This fact has motivated our search for occurrences of 4, 2, 1, and …