Collatz Conjecture

Instructions

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.

But sometimes the number grow significantly before it reaches 1. This can lead to an integer overflow and makes the algorithm unsolvable within the range of a number in u64.

Given a number n, return the number of steps required to reach 1.

Examples

Starting with n = 12, the steps would be as follows:

1. 12
2. 6
3. 3
4. 10
5. 5
6. 16
7. 8
8. 4
9. 2
10. 1

Resulting in 9 steps. So for input n = 12, the return value would be 9.

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Source

An unsolved problem in mathematics named after mathematician Lothar Collatz