Katydid Sequence
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The Katydid sequence is a
sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...
of numbers first defined in
Clifford A. Pickover Clifford Alan Pickover (born August 15, 1957) is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. For many years, he was employed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research ...
's book ''Wonders of Numbers'' (2001).


Description

A Katydid sequence is the smallest sequence of integers that can be reached from 1 by a sequence of the two operations ''n'' ↦ 2''n'' + 2 and 7''n'' + 7 (in any order). For instance, applying the first operation to 1 produces the number 4, and applying the second operation to 4 produces the number 35, both of which are in the sequence. The first 10 elements of the sequence are: :1, 4, 10, 14, 22, 30, 35, 46, 62, 72.


Repetitions

Pickover asked whether there exist numbers that can be reached by more than one sequence of operations. The answer is yes. For instance, 1814526 can be reached by the two sequences 1, 4, 10, 22, 46, 329, 660, 4627, 9256, 18514, 37030, 259217, 1814526 and 1, 14, 30, 62, 441, 884, 1770, 3542, 7086, 14174, 28350, 56702, 113406, 226814, 453630, 907262, 1814526.


References

Integer sequences {{Numtheory-stub