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Conway's Constant
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ConwaysConstantRoots

The constant

 lambda=1.303577269034296...

(Sloane's A014715) giving the asymptotic rate of growth Clambda^n of the number of digits in the nth term of the look and say sequence, given by the unique positive real root of the polynomial

 0=x^(71)-x^(69)-2x^(68)-x^(67)+2x^(66)+2x^(65)+x^(64)-x^(63)-x^(62)-x^(61)-x^(60)-x^(59)+2x^(58)+5x^(57)+3x^(56)-2x^(55)-10x^(54)-3x^(53)-2x^(52)+6x^(51)+6x^(50)+x^(49)+9x^(48)-3x^(47)-7x^(46)-8x^(45)-8x^(44)+10x^(43)+6x^(42)+8x^(41)-5x^(40)-12x^(39)+7x^(38)-7x^(37)+7x^(36)+x^(35)-3x^(34)+10x^(33)+x^(32)-6x^(31)-2x^(30)-10x^(29)-3x^(28)+2x^(27)+9x^(26)-3x^(25)+14x^(24)-8x^(23)-7x^(21)+9x^(20)+3x^(19)-4x^(18)-10x^(17)-7x^(16)+12x^(15)+7x^(14)+2x^(13)-12x^(12)-4x^(11)-2x^(10)+5x^9+x^7-7x^6+7x^5-4x^4+12x^3-6x^2+3x-6,

illustrated in the figure above. Note that the polynomial given in Conway (1987, p. 188) contains a misprint.

The continued fraction for lambda is 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2, 1, 5, 8, 4, 14, 3, 1, ... (Sloane's A014967).

SEE ALSO: Conway Sequence, Cosmological Theorem, Look and Say Sequence

REFERENCES:

Conway, J. H. "The Weird and Wonderful Chemistry of Audioactive Decay." §5.11 in Open Problems in Communications and Computation (Ed. T. M. Cover and B. Gopinath). New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 173-188, 1987.

Conway, J. H. and Guy, R. K. "The Look and Say Sequence." In The Book of Numbers. New York: Springer-Verlag, pp. 208-209, 1996.

Finch, S. R. "Conway's Constant." §6.12 in Mathematical Constants. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 452-455, 2003.

Hilgemeier, M. "Die Gleichniszahlen-Reihe." Bild der Wissensch. 12, 194-196, Dec. 1986.

Hilgemeier, M. "'One Metaphor Fits All': A Fractal Voyage with Conway's Audioactive Decay." Ch. 7 in Fractal Horizons: The Future Use of Fractals (Ed. C. A. Pickover). New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.

Sloane, N. J. A. Sequences A014715 and A014967 in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."

Vardi, I. Computational Recreations in Mathematica. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, pp. 13-14, 1991.

Wolfram, S. A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media, p. 905, 2002.




CITE THIS AS:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Conway's Constant." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ConwaysConstant.html

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