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.

Examples

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.

Source

Created by

@Tuxified

Contributed to by

@angelikatyborska
@Cohen-Carlisle
@devonestes
@neenjaw
@sotojuan

Based on

An unsolved problem in mathematics named after mathematician Lothar Collatz - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3x_%2B_1_problem