OFFSET
1,1
COMMENTS
It is conjectured that 15/16 (93.75%) of the positive integers that are not powers of 2 have 2^4 as the maximum power of 2 in their Collatz trajectory (see A232503 and A355187). {a(n)} lists the remaining positive integers. Consequently, it is conjectured that this sequence will have lim_{n->oo} a(n)/n = 1/16.
Among the numbers from 1 to 1000, there are 10 that are powers of 2, and there are 932 others (excluding 16) whose Collatz trajectories contain 2^4 as their maximum power of 2. The remaining 58 numbers are the first 58 terms of {a(n)}.
If k is in this sequence then so is k*2^j for any j > 0. To find a "primitive" set simply eliminate the even terms (see A350160).
LINKS
EXAMPLE
21 is a term since its trajectory 21 64 32 16 8 2 1 has 64 as the highest power of 2, which is more than 16 and 21 is not itself a power of 2.
MATHEMATICA
collatz[n_] := Module[{}, If[OddQ[n], 3n+1, n/2]]; step[n_] := Module[{p=0, m=n, q}, While[!IntegerQ[q=Log[2, m]], m=collatz[m]; p++]; {p, q, n}]; Last/@Select[Table[step[n], {n, 1, 10^5}], #[[1]]>0 && #[[2]]!=4 &]
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn
AUTHOR
Frank M Jackson, Jul 01 2022
STATUS
approved