English

Iteration Steps of 3x+1 Problem

General Mathematics 2025-07-14 v2

Abstract

On the 3x+1 problem, given a positive integer NN, let D(N)D\left( N \right) , O(N)O\left( N \right) , E(N)E\left( N \right) be the total iteration steps, the odd iteration steps and the even iteration steps when NN iterates to 1(except 1) respectively. Trivially, we have D(N)=O(N)+E(N)D\left( N \right) =O\left( N \right) +E\left( N \right) . In this paper, we propose a so-called weak residue conjecture(i.e., 2E(N)3O(N)N2\frac{2^{E\left( N \right)}}{3^{O\left( N \right)}\cdot N}\le 2). We prove that if 3x+1 conjecture is true and the weak residue conjecture is true, there exist non-trivial relationships among D(N)D\left( N \right) , O(N)O\left( N \right) , E(N)E\left( N \right) , i.e., O(N)=log62D(N)log6NO\left( N \right) =\lfloor \log_6 2\cdot D\left( N \right) -\log_6 N \rfloor (it implies that we can calculate O(N)O\left( N \right) , E(N)E\left( N \right) directly by D(N)D\left( N \right) only, of course given NN), and 5 more similar equations are derived simultaneously.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.23070,
  title  = {Iteration Steps of 3x+1 Problem},
  author = {Youchun Luo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.23070},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

16 pages, add 1 important reference, rewrite 3 formulas of Theorem 3

R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:38:11.350Z