Program To Calculate Hailstone Sequences
A specific Hailstone sequence can be easily computed, as is shown by this pseudocode example:
- function hailstone(n)
- while n > 1
- show n
- if n is odd then
- set n = 3n + 1
- else
- set n = n / 2
- endif
- endwhile
- show n
- while n > 1
This program halts when the sequence reaches 1, in order to avoid printing an endless cycle of 4, 2, 1. If the Collatz conjecture is true, the program will always halt (stop) no matter what positive starting integer is given to it.
Read more about this topic: Collatz Conjecture
Famous quotes containing the words program, calculate and/or hailstone:
“The candidate tells us we are the “backbone of the State,” and we know that it is true, not because we are possessed of certain endowed virtues, but because we are a majority and have the vote.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“However others calculate the cost,
To us the final aggregate is one,
One with a name, one transferred to the blest;
And though another stoops and takes the gun,
We cannot add the second to the first.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“You are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,
Or hailstone in the sun.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)