2009/03/24 by Doron Zeilberger, Zeilberger, Doron
Mathematics · #Benford’s Law and Fraud Detection #Combinatorics (math.CO) #Dynamical Systems (math.DS) #FOS: Mathematics #math.CO #math.DS
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0903.4050
12 pages
arxiv created 2009/03/24 · openalex publication_date 2009/03/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Paul Erdos claimed that mathematics is not yet ready to settle the 3x+1 conjecture. I agree, but very soon it will be! With the exponential growth of computer-generated mathematics, we (or rather our silicon brethrern) would have a shot at it. Of course, not by number crunching, but by symbol crunching and automatic deduction. In the present article, I taught my computer how to use the brilliant ideas of four human beings (Amal Amleh, Ed Grove, Candy Kent, and Gerry Ladas) to prove two-dimensional analogs of this notorious conjecture. Once programmed (using my Maple package LADAS) it reproduced their ten theorems, and generated 134 new ones, complete with proofs. All by itself! I believe that the proof of the original 3x+1 conjecture would be in the same vein, but one would need a couple of extra human ideas, and better computers.