A064387 Variation (2) on Recamán's sequence (A005132): to get a(n), we first try to subtract n from a(n-1): a(n) = a(n-1)-n if positive and not already in the sequence; if not then a(n) = a(n-1)+n+i, where i >= 0 is the smallest number such that a(n-1)+n+i has not already appeared.

1, 3, 6, 2, 7, 13, 20, 12, 21, 11, 22, 10, 23, 9, 24, 8, 25, 43, 62, 42, 63, 41, 18, 44, 19, 45, 72, 100, 71, 101, 70, 38, 5, 39, 4, 40, 77, 115, 76, 36, 78, 120, 163, 119, 74, 28, 75, 27, 79, 29, 80, 132, 185, 131, 186, 130, 73, 15, 81, 141, 202

Offset: 1

Author

N. J. A. Sloane, Sep 28 2001

Keywords

• nonn
• easy

Comments

Variation (4) (A064389) is the nicest of these variations.

I would also like to get the following sequences: number of steps before n appears (or 0 if n never appears), list of numbers that never appear, height of n (cf. A064288, A064289, A064290), etc.

References

• Suggested by J. C. Lagarias.

Links

• Nick Hobson, Python program for this sequence
• Index entries for sequences related to Recamán's sequence

Crossrefs

Cf. A005132, A046901, A064388, A064389. Agrees with A064389 for first 187 terms, then diverges.

Programs

Maple

h := array(1..100000); maxt := 100000; a := array(1..1000); a[1] := 1; h[1] := 1; for nx from 2 to 1000 do t1 := a[nx-1]-nx; if t1>0 and h[t1] <> 1 then a[nx] := t1; if t1 < maxt then h[t1] := 1; fi; else for i from 0 to 1000 do t1 := a[nx-1]+nx+i; if h[t1] <> 1 then a[nx] := t1; if t1 < maxt then h[t1] := 1; fi; break; fi; od; fi; od; evalm(a);