The Collatz conjecture is also known as the “3n + 1” problem. It’s an easy problem to explain and check, and has been tested up into the nineteen figure range. But it’s only now that anyone has come ...

Experienced mathematicians warn up-and-comers to stay away from the Collatz conjecture. It’s a siren song, they say: Fall under its trance and you may never do meaningful work again. The Collatz ...

Mathematicians regard the Collatz conjecture as a quagmire and warn each other to stay away. But now Terence Tao has made more progress than anyone in decades. Experienced mathematicians warn ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. It's a nice picture and it sure looks like there's some pattern there, but it's not been quantified. So, why do we believe this ...

This column comes with a warning: Do not try to solve this math problem. You will be tempted. This problem is simply stated, easily understood, and all too inviting. Just pick a number, any number: If ...

This week, we’ve celebrated the long-awaited answer to a decades-old math problem, and now we’re one step closer to an even older numbers puzzle that has stumped the world’s brightest minds. But many ...

If you have ever thought that working out a Collatz sequence by hand was alright but lacked buttons and lights, the Collatz-o-matic by [mechatronicsguy] has you covered! The device is a type of Tag ...

Seaweed? Worms? Bad hair day? The animation below is a new way to look at the Collatz conjecture, one of the most high-profile open problems in mathematics. The conjecture is easy to explain, given ...

The Collatz Conjecture is a deceptively simple math problem. It has only two rules. First, pick any number. If it's even, divide it by two. If it's odd, multiply it by three and add one. This will ...

Due to a variety of server scheduling problems that have not been able to be resolved, Collatz will be phasing out the multi-size workunits over the next week or two and going back to using multiple ...