Definitions
The
Syracuse Conjecture is certainly one of the few open mathematical problems whose statement is understandable by all, that is why it is so fascinating.
I call a
revolutionary number, in the sense of the Syracuse sequence, a number such that at the end of a certain number of steps in the Syracuse sequence (standard or reduced), has again a value very close to the starting number.
So after a very chaotic journey, we almost did a cycle, which is like a revolution.
As a reminder, if there was a non-trivial cycle, different from (4,2,1), then the Syracuse conjecture would be false, which gives mathematical interest to these numbers.
For purists, it is a number such that there exists N for which the relative difference between u(N) and u(0) is very small, which means that we have "almost" a cycle for u(0), let |u(N) / u(0) - 1| < ε, ε being small. u representing the standard Syracuse sequence, u(n+1) = u(n)/2 if u(n) is even, and u(n+1) = 3×u(n)+1 if u(n) is odd.
We will call v, the reduced Syracuse sequence, defined as follows: v(n+1) = v(n)/2 if v(n) is even, and v(n+1) = (3×u(n)+1)/2 if v(n) is odd.