Electronic Proceedings of the Twenty-first Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics

New Orleans, Louisiana, March 12-15, 2009

Paper C005

This is an electronic reprint, reproduced by permission of Pearson Education Inc. Originally appeared in the Proceedings of the Twenty-first Annual International Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics, ISBN 0-321-68983-6, Copyright (C) 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc.


Utilizing CAS Technology to Enhance Students Understanding of the Collatz Problem

Jay L. Schiffman


Rowan University

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ABSTRACT

Consider the famous Collatz problem: Take any positive integer. If even, divide by two; if odd, triple and add one. Apply on each new integer obtained. Eventually, the sequence converges to one. Using CAS technology, we explore this conjecture via tables in sequence mode and via a user-defined program.

Keyword(s): number theory, Voyage 200, computer algebra systems