The Simplest Impossible Problem #shorts

Jeffrey Lagarias said the Collatz Conjecture is "completely out of reach of present day mathematics." Can YOU find a number that doesn't eventually reach 1? #shorts

[mathyland]

You didn't actually state what the problem is, namely to prove that every number eventually reaches 1. You just stated it as fact, which might be confusing to those who haven't heard of this before.

[brockormond]

Isn't more accurate that, in this problem, the sequence will eventually oscillate from 4 to 2 to 1 and then back to 4 endlessly; because you never said that you stop at 1.

[lukeerikblue]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "impossible" isn't the right word. The collatz conjecture is unsolved but not yet shown to be unsolvable right?

[waka]

Slight correction, negative numbers will have 3 different loops depending on your starting negative number.

[youwerethere]

1: “Where did that lead you? Back to me.”

[jhpratt]

Unproven, not impossible. Enormous difference.

[ekxo]

I'm a bit irritated by the notation abuse of the equality symbol

[concurro]

"Mathematics are not yet ripe enough for such questions" -Paul Erdos

[adean]

Fun fact: negative numbers end in 3 different possibilities

[HolyGiraffeMapleStory]

There's even an Euler Project exercise that asks what number starts the longest chain (to 1) in the range 1 to 1 million

[subhasish-m]

I think unsolved would be a better description than impossible - impossible would imply we have proved that it cannot be proved true or false (which is indeed possible by Godel). This problem is just unsolved.

[lucmermans]

My eyes hurt from the equal signs where it’s not equal

[razvanvasilache]

1/0 is the simplest impossible mathemathical question

[rennoc]

Imagine the solution is like 36 and everyone was like "HOW DID WE FORGET ABOUT 36"

[Stray]

So as soon as you touch a power of 2 it's game over?

[Airblader]

The usage of equations here makes me want to throw up. Combine it with not stating the problem in the first place, and then mislabeling it as "impossible", and you have a video that is all around factually wrong. Sorry, this one was a miss.

[Xeratas]

What he writes is mathematically completly wrong. Kinda hurts.

[DrRedsss]

This is known as 3n+1 or 3x+1 and is a conjecture which is thought to be true: every positive integer, when applies this rule, will always end up in the 4 2 1 loop. However some mathematicians later showed that there must be some counter examples. Today, we are still trying to prove the conjecture either false or true.

[timonobel]

I just wrote a thesis about this problem for my maths test. I figured out that the amount of iterations it takes can actually be found with a function that looks something like thr negative fourth root of 750000x plus 180 if someone who is actually smart wants to investigate this more feel free to reply here i will send you the paper

[victzegopterix]

For those that are sure that it's not the Collatz conjecture but the Syracuse conjecture or the Syracuse problem or the Ulam conjecture or the Thwaites conjecture or Kakutani's problem or Hasse's algorithm or the 3n+1 problem or the 3n+1 conjecture or the Czech conjecture, this just has a big lot of names.