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 ...
A seemingly simple set of rules kicks off a kind of mathematical magic trick, which has kept great minds busy since the 1930s. Columnist Jacob Aron explores the origins of the Collatz conjecture, why ...