OFFSET
1,4
COMMENTS
A cycle is irreducible if it is not a concatenation of copies of a shorter cycle.
The 3x+1 function T, on rational numbers in their lowest terms with a positive odd denominator, is defined by T(x) = x/2 if x's numerator is even, T(x) = (3x+1)/2 if x's numerator is odd.
Each numerator in a row is the first in the cyclic permutation with the lexicographically largest parity vector of numerators mod 2. The row lists these numerators in descending lexicographic order of the parity vectors.
The element with numerator a(n) has denominator A226606(n), as does every element in the same cycle.
a(n) is often the numerator with the least absolute value of the numerators in the cycle. a(20) and a(36) are the only exceptions in the first 7 rows.
LINKS
Geoffrey H. Morley, Rows 1..16 of array, flattened
J. C. Lagarias, The set of rational cycles for the 3x+1 problem, Acta Arith. 56 (1990), 33-53. - See Table 2.2 on page 39.
FORMULA
If v(0) to v(m-1) are the bits of A102659(n), when 2's are replaced by 0's, then a(n) = N(n)/GCD(N(n),D(n)) where D(n) = 2^m - 3^(v(0)+...+v(m-1)) and N(n) = Sum_{j=0 to m-1} (2^j)(3^(v(j+1)+...+v(m-1)))v(j).
EXAMPLE
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
sign,frac,tabf
AUTHOR
Geoffrey H. Morley, Jun 27 2013
STATUS
approved