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A comment on Collatz's Ant.

Re:Collatz's Ant by standardly on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @05:15PM (#43776689)
The conjecture holds up through 2^68. Can't we just call it there? Lol I'm obviously being obtuse, but really is there some reason to think there would be an exception at sufficiently large integers? It's hard to even imagine that one wouldn't.

edit: I'm in way over my head. Disregard me :)

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Re:Collatz's Ant by WhitneyLand on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @06:03PM (#43777131)
It’s a fair question. Two things:

1. It does happen. These conjectures can fall apart after seeming like a lock: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertens_conjecture

2. Even if it is true, the process of proving can yield interesting insights.

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Re:Collatz's Ant by standardly on Thursday April 24, 2025 @03:36PM (#43786625)
That's pretty mind-blowing. Hey thanks for replying. Mathematics is a tough subject to take interest in as a layman, but I still enjoy it for some reason.
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