Curious Properties of an Iterative Process How could high school students present original mathematics research using Mathematica? -- from Wolfram Library Archive

We define a function by dsf[n] = a+ a+ ... + a where {a, a, ..., a} is the list of the digits of an integer n. Suppose we start with any positive integer n, and repeatedly apply the function dsf. We can then generate a sequence of integers a . This sequence will eventually enter into one of 8 kinds of loops. We could prove this fact using Mathematica. Many of ideas in this paper are proposed by students, and this research shows what High School students can achieve.

Subject

Education > Precollege

Keywords

iterative process, high school education, mathematics research