Mathematician Proves Huge Result on ‘Dangerous’ Problem

Quanta Magazine ^ | December 11, 2019 | Kevin Hartnett

[C19fan]

Simple conjecture that any lay person can understand has baffled mathematicians for decades.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take a grasshopper with a wooden leg to kick all of the seeds out of a dill pickle?”

My Grandpa used to pose that to us from time to time. No one, to this day, has found the answer! ;)

[Bonemaker]

"Fall under its trance and you may never do meaningful work again. " No thanks...I did that already when I retired!😎

[KarlInOhio]

It’s a siren song, they say: Fall under its trance and you may never do meaningful work again.

Kind of like Trump Derangement Syndrome on Congress.

[SubMareener]

1 4 2 7 22 11 34 17
2 1 ....
3 7 ,...
4 ....
5 16 8 4 ....
6 3 ...
7 ....
8 4 ....
9 28 14 7 ....
Ok so now we know why they picked Q!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks for posting this! Very fascinating.

I’d never heard of a mathematical “conjecture” before.

I sent this to my math teacher sister. She teaches middle school kids in Baltimore who still struggle mightily with the concept of “one-half” after a full year of math instruction.

[Bitman]

Is 0 a number? If it is, this thing calls apart really quickly.

[Bethaneidh]

Do all resolve to 1 ? Enough that you can stop now. Or, save time and DON’T multiply by 3. See? Yep, all.

[Calamari]

The chicken will eat the grasshopper before it gets to the pickle. So the answer is never.

[glorgau]

There's also the classic XKCD cartoon Collatz Conjecture

[rightwingcrazy]

“If it’s odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. If it’s even, divide it by 2.”

At first glance, the process would seem to yield even numbers oftener than odd ones. Those get divided by 2, so the series would seem to trend downward to 1, eventually. Must be more complicated than that, though.

[bgill]

Is the grasshopper left or right legged and which leg is wooden?

[bgill]

“Almost” doesn’t work with mathematics.

[Sequoyah101]

No thanks. Not into self-imposed tedium.

[ClearCase_guy]

Pi is almost 3.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Is the chicken purty?

[Jolla]

is 0 a number? one of my favorite :

If it is 0 degrees and it gets twice as cold, how cold is it?

PS I do not know the answer and C or F use either.

[Tell It Right]

It basically boils down to you eventually arrive at a number that's a power of 2. (If you're a Dim voter, that means the number is "2 to the something power".) Which means each time you halve it (divide by two), you still have an even number, which means halving it again, then again, and again, until you reach 1.

Think of it as starting with 5. It's even, so multiply it by 3 (which makes 15) and add 1 (which makes 16). 16 is a power of 2 because it's 2 to the 4th power. Basically, from this point on you're halving it over and over until you get to 1. So: because 16 is even you halve it to get 8 (which is 2 to the 3rd power), then halve it again to get 4 (2 to the 2nd power), then 2 (2 to the 1st power), then 1 (2 to the 0 power).

[Tell It Right]

Oops. I mean “starting with 5. It’s odd” :)

[Honest Nigerian]

Simple conjecture that any lay person can understand has baffled mathematicians for decades.
*”*”*”*”*”*”*”*”
BINGO!!
Most anyone in retail understands this. It is encountered daily where one has to deal with mark-up and mark-down.

Now give every supermarket manager his or her PhD.