A Fractional $3n+1$ Conjecture
Abstract
In this paper we introduce and discuss the sequence of \emph{real numbers} defined as and where \begin{equation*} \Delta(x) = \begin{cases} \frac{x}{2} &\text{if } \operatorname{frac}(x)<\frac{1}{2} \\[4px] \frac{3x+1}{2} & \text{if } \operatorname{frac}(x)\geq\frac{1}{2} \end{cases} \end{equation*} This sequence is reminiscent of the famous Collatz sequence, and seems to exhibit an interesting behaviour. Indeed, we conjecture that iterating will eventually either converge to zero, or loop over sequences of real numbers with integer parts . We prove this conjecture for . Extending the proof to larger fixed values seems to be a matter of computing power. The authors pledge to offer a reward to the first person who proves or refutes the conjecture completely -- with a proof published in a serious refereed mathematical conference or journal.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2006.11634,
title = {A Fractional $3n+1$ Conjecture},
author = {Éric Brier and Rémi Géraud-Stewart and David Naccache},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.11634},
year = {2020}
}