English

Descending Dungeons and Iterated Base-Changing

Number Theory 2014-09-17 v3

Abstract

For real numbers a, b> 1, let as a_b denote the result of interpreting a in base b instead of base 10. We define ``dungeons'' (as opposed to ``towers'') to be numbers of the form a_b_c_d_..._e, parenthesized either from the bottom upwards (preferred) or from the top downwards. Among other things, we show that the sequences of dungeons with n-th terms 10_11_12_..._(n-1)_n or n_(n-1)_..._12_11_10 grow roughly like 10^{10^{n log log n}}, where the logarithms are to the base 10. We also investigate the behavior as n increases of the sequence a_a_a_..._a, with n a's, parenthesized from the bottom upwards. This converges either to a single number (e.g. to the golden ratio if a = 1.1), to a two-term limit cycle (e.g. if a = 1.05) or else diverges (e.g. if a = frac{100{99).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0611293,
  title  = {Descending Dungeons and Iterated Base-Changing},
  author = {David Applegate and Marc LeBrun and N. J. A. Sloane},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0611293},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

11 pages; new version takes into account comments from referees; version of Sep 25 2007 inculdes a new theorem and several small improvements