login

Year-end appeal: Please make a donation to the OEIS Foundation to support ongoing development and maintenance of the OEIS. We are now in our 61st year, we have over 378,000 sequences, and we’ve reached 11,000 citations (which often say “discovered thanks to the OEIS”).

a(n) is the smallest positive number not yet in the sequence that if n is odd, contains the smallest digit in a(n-1), and if n is even, contains the largest digit in a(n-1); a(1)=0.
5

%I #22 Feb 08 2018 17:16:01

%S 0,10,20,2,12,21,1,11,13,3,23,30,40,4,14,24,22,25,26,6,16,36,31,32,27,

%T 7,17,37,33,34,35,5,15,45,41,42,28,8,18,38,39,9,19,29,52,50,60,46,43,

%U 44,47,57,51,53,63,56,54,55,58,48,49,59,65,61

%N a(n) is the smallest positive number not yet in the sequence that if n is odd, contains the smallest digit in a(n-1), and if n is even, contains the largest digit in a(n-1); a(1)=0.

%C The 1-digit numbers appear in the sequence in the following order: 0,2,1,3,4,6,7,5,8,9.

%C After the initial terms, the sequence oscillates about the line y=x.

%C The first differences are bounded by 30 and -36 for the initial terms, then by 20 and -20. After the first 121 terms the sequence is bounded most of the time by 10 and -10, with eventual jumps that seem to remain bounded by 36 and -36.

%H Robert G. Wilson v, <a href="/A297353/b297353.txt">Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..5000</a>

%e a(2)=10 since it is the smallest number not yet in the sequence that contains the largest digit in a(1)=0; a(3)=20 since it is the smallest number not yet in the sequence that contains the smallest digit in a(2)=10; a(4)=2 since it is the smallest number not yet in the sequence that contains the largest digit in a(3)=20.

%t a[n_] := a[n] = Block[{k = 1, s = Union[ IntegerDigits[ a[n -1]]][[If[ OddQ@ n, 1, -1]]], t = Array[a, n - 1]}, While[ MemberQ[t, k] || ! MemberQ[ IntegerDigits@ k, s], k++]; k]; a[1] = 0; Array[a, 72] (* _Robert G. Wilson v_, Dec 30 2017 *)

%Y Cf. A297352.

%K nonn,base

%O 1,2

%A _Enrique Navarrete_, Dec 28 2017

%E Definition clarified by _N. J. A. Sloane_, Feb 08 2018