@@ -4,20 +4,21 @@ One evening, we found an old notebook filled with scribbles, like someone had be
44On one page, there was a single question: ** Can every number find its way to 1?**
55It was tied to something called the Collatz Conjecture, a puzzle that has baffled thinkers for decades.
66
7- The instructions seemed simple.
7+ The rules seemed simple.
88Pick any positive integer:
99
1010* If it's even, divide it by 2.
1111* If it's odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1.
1212
1313Then, repeat these steps with the result, continuing indefinitely.
1414
15- Curious, we picked number 12 to test, and started the journey:
15+ Curious, we picked number 12 to test and started the journey:
1616
171712 ➜ 6 ➜ 3 ➜ 10 ➜ 5 ➜ 16 ➜ 8 ➜ 4 ➜ 2 ➜ 1
1818
1919Counting from the second number (6), it took 9 steps to reach 1, and each time the rules repeated, the number kept changing.
20- At first, the steps seemed unpredictable — jumping up, down, and all over — yet they always ended at 1, no matter the starting number.
20+ At first, the steps seemed unpredictable — jumping up, down, and all over.
21+ Yet the conjecture states that no matter the starting number, we'll always end at 1.
2122
2223It was fascinating, but also puzzling.
2324Why does this always seem to work?
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