OFFSET
1,2
COMMENTS
This sequence is a permutation of the natural numbers. Sketch of proof: that it is one-to-one is trivial. Inductively, the halving operation can never happen more than 4 times in a row. There are at least 5 multiples of 3 amongst 16m .. 16m+15; by the induction, one of these will be a value a(n) = 3n and then 4 halving operations will get m (if it has not previously appeared). It follows that m will occur in the sequence no later than floor((16m+26)/3). Empirically, it appears that the 26 in this formula could be replaced by 21. The first occurrence of 4 consecutive halvings starts at n = 226, winding up with a(230)=42. - Franklin T. Adams-Watters, Mar 10 2006
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn
AUTHOR
STATUS
approved
