cp's OEIS Frontend

Also called "stopping times", although that term is usually reserved for A006666.

From K. Spage, Oct 22 2009, corrected Aug 21 2014: (Start)

Congruency relationship: For n>1 and m>1, all m congruent to n mod 2^(a(n)) have a dropping time equal to a(n).

By refining the definition of the dropping time to "starting with x=n, iterate x until (abs(x) <= abs(n))" the above congruency relationship holds for all nonnegative values of n and all positive or negative values of m including zero.

By this refined definition, a(1)=2 rather than the usual zero set by convention. All other values of positive a(n) remain unchanged. (End)

Terras defines a coefficient stopping time (definition 1.5) tau(n) = d which is the smallest d for which 3^u/2^d < 1 where u is the number of tripling steps among the first d steps starting from n. Clearly tau(n) <= a(n), and Terras conjectures (conjecture 2.9) that tau(n) = a(n) for n>=2. - Olivier Rozier, May 13 2024

If the starting value is even then of course the next step in the trajectory is smaller (cf. A102419).

The dropping time can be made arbitrarily large: If the starting value is of form n(2^m)-1 and m > 1, the next value is 3n(2^m)-3+1. That divided by 2 is 3n(2^(m-1))-1. It is bigger than the starting value and of the same form - substitute 3n -> n and m-1 -> m, so recursively get an increasing subsequence of m odd values. The dropping time is obviously longer than that. This holds even if Collatz conjecture were refuted. For example, m=5, n=3 -> 95, 286, 143, 430, 215, 646, 323, 970, 485, 1456, 728, 364, 182, 91. So the subsequence in reduced Collatz variant is 95, 143, 215, 323, 485. - Juhani Heino, Jul 21 2017

Remark that initial values of form 64m+r, if r={3, 11, 19, 27, 35, 43, 51, 55} provide first-sink-lengths {7, 9, 7, 9, 7, 9, 7, 9} respectively; e.g. {64k+19, 192k+58, 96k+29, 288k+88, 144k+44, 72k+22, 36k+11} submerge first below initial value at the 7th term, 36k+11<64k+19.

1stSubmergeLengths[=A074473] with initial values belonging to other residue classes modulo 64 are either listed in A075476-A075483 or can be easily determined. For 64k+2s the first sink below initial value is at 2nd iterate; for 64k+4s+1 the first submerge below initial value comes at 4th term of iteration list; finally if initial value is of 64k+4s+3 form or moreover initial value = 64k+r, r = 3, 11, 19, 23, 35, 43, 51, 55, then for all k first sink emerges at the 7th, 9th, 7th, 9th, 7th, 9th, 7th, 9th iterates, respectively.

Number of residue classes in which A074473(m) is not constant.

The ratio of numbers of inhomogenous r-classes versus uniform-classes enumerated here increases with n and tends to 0. For n large enough ratio < a(16)/65536 = 2114/65536 ~ 3.23%.

Theorem: a(n) can be generated for each n > 2 algorithmically in a Pascal's triangle-like manner from the two starting values 0 and 1. This result is based on the fact that the Collatz residues (mod 2^k) can be evolved according to a binary tree. There is a direct connectedness to A100982, A056576, A022921, A020915. - Mike Winkler, Sep 12 2017

Brown's criterion ensures that the sequence is complete (see formulae). - Vladimir M. Zarubin, Aug 11 2019

1stSubmergeLengths[=A074473] with initial values belonging to other residue classes modulo 64 are either listed in A075476-A075483 or can be easily determined. For 64k+2s the first sink below initial value is at 2nd iterate; for 64k+4s+1 the first submerge below initial value comes at 4th term of iteration list; finally if initial value is of 64k+4s+3 form or moreover initial value = 64k+r, r = 3, 11, 19, 23, 35, 43, 51, 55, then for all k first sink emerges at the 7th, 9th, 7th, 9th, 7th, 9th, 7th, 9th iterates, respectively.

It is believed that for each x, a(n) = x occurs a finite number of times and the largest n is 2^x.

Original name: Start iteration of Collatz-function (A006370) with initial value of n. a(n) shows how many times during fixed-point-list, the value sinks below initial one until reaching endpoint = 1. - Michael De Vlieger, Dec 13 2018

The dropping time is the number of Collatz iterations required to reach a lower number than starting value. Garner mentions these congruences. The first term in row n is A122442(n+1) for n > 1. The length of row n is A100982(n).

The triangle means:

numbers 0 (mod 2) and > 0 have dropping time 1;

numbers 1 (mod 4) and > 1 have dropping time 3;

numbers 3 (mod 16) have dropping time 6;

numbers 11, 23 (mod 32) have dropping time 8;

numbers 7, 15, 59 (mod 128) have dropping time 11;

numbers 39, 79, 95, 123, 175, 199, 219 (mod 256) have dropping time 13.

Theorem: a(n) can be evaluated using a directed rooted tree produced by a precise algorithm. Each node of this tree is given by a unique Diophantine equation whose only positive solutions are the integers with a finite stopping time. The algorithm generates (in a three step loop) the parity vectors which define the Diophantine equations. The two directions of the construction principle gives the tree a triangular form which extends ever more downwards with each column. There exist explicit arithmetic relationships between the parent and child vertices. As a consequence, a(n) can be generated algorithmically. The algorithm also generates A100982. - Mike Winkler, Sep 12 2017