The Collatz Conjecture or 3x+1 problem can be summarized as follows:
Take any positive integer n. If n is even, divide n by 2 to get n / 2. If n is odd, multiply n by 3 and add 1 to get 3n + 1. Repeat the process indefinitely. The conjecture states that no matter which number you start with, you will always reach 1 eventually.
Given a number n, return the number of steps required to reach 1.
Starting with n = 12, the steps would be as follows:
Resulting in 9 steps. So for input n = 12, the return value would be 9.
Register | Usage | Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
$a0 |
input | integer | starting number |
$v0 |
output | integer | expected number of steps, -1 if number is invalid |
$t0-9 |
temporary | any | used for temporary storage |
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