English

A Combinatorial interpretation of Hofstadter's G-sequence

Combinatorics 2013-06-18 v3

Abstract

We give a combinatorial interpretation of a classical meta-Fibonacci sequence defined by G(n) = n - G(G(n-1)) with the initial condition G(1) = 1, which appears in Hofstadter's 'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'. The interpretation is in terms of an infinite labelled tree. We then show a few corollaries about the behaviour of the sequence G(n) directly from the interpretation.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1105.1718,
  title  = {A Combinatorial interpretation of Hofstadter's G-sequence},
  author = {Mustazee Rahman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1105.1718},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure. Version 3 has some crucial typos fixed

R2 v1 2026-06-21T18:04:39.076Z