why do we crunch collatz?

[MindCrime]

Can someone explain to me what is so amazing about the question that collatz is asking? It's a pretty simple concept in my mind, I guess the first way I "boxed it up" was HoTPO in its simplest cycle is 4,2,1 and asking the same questions from any higher integers is purely an offset, the integer I start with is my coefficient and the instructions are built in to factor it out. We also have a bit of logic in it, if even then divide, if odd then multiply and add 1, the answer is in the question

HALF or Triple Plus 1 2=half 4=triple+1 it's just factored to smallest terms, yeah it climbs up and down before it's all factored out but that's the nature of climbing on odds and falling on evens but there's more evens because the equation asks for evens thus it eventually falls all the way to simplest terms 4,2,1

is there something greater to this numerical oddity?

is it because it's easy credit?

[cineon_lut]

Sadly, yes. It's easy, good credit. If we hope to maintain a good team overall score, it needs to be on our list. The project from a technical standpoint is great: The apps are well written and efficient, easy to run, generally reliable and it always has work. Pay is good too.

Like most math projects though, it's scientifically bankrupt.

Disregard everything I said if one day someone on BOINC proves the conjecture wrong.

[DrPop]

Most things in BOINC are a little strange. Like . . . why do we crunch Collatz? Well, for starters, it's on par with several other projects - as in not really much scientific value coming out of it, but more of a "proof of concept" I think. Secondly, the project is VERY well run, Slicker (one of our team mates who runs the project) responds to changes and questions near immediately, and is always on the ball with new and improved GPU apps.
Third, in the grand-scheme of BOINC stats, it is a fairly large project. Not the biggest, and not the highest credit, but it's up there in the top 1/3 for sure, and we ignore it at our own peril if we want to maintain a competitive score.
Hope that helps a little!

[c303a]

Remember that you as an individual do not have to run any project you do not want to. The team as a whole, is a crunch what you want team. I usually just run the medical science projects, but I will sometimes run different projects to help the team during a challenge. If you want to run a project, just do it, if not, don't. Pick the projects you like and give them h***.

[myshortpencil]

Can someone explain to me what is so amazing about the question that collatz is asking? . . .

is there something greater to this numerical oddity?

is it because it's easy credit?

I asked the same question on this forum a while ago, and the best answer I got is that Slicker -- a team member -- runs the project and his endeavors to write ever better and more efficient codes for a wide variety of CPUs and GPUs ends up helping other projects. Think of Collatz not just as math, but as a testing ground for innovations in distributive computing. To what extent does the expertise gained in Collatz help other projects? I don't know, but you could send a private message to Slicker, or wait a while to see if he replies here, to find out.

[Mumps]

Well, keep in mind as well that Collatz was (I believe) the first project to implement *any* code to support ATI cards. And as such brought a lot of FLOPs to the BOINC arena in general.

Also, while some may disparage many of the "pure math" projects as scientifically bankrupt, many of them are hunts to prove (or disprove) many hypothesis that are the foundations of many things important in modern life. If some of these conjectures prove to be invalid, it can theoretically dump modern science on it's ear. Just like the expected discovery of the effects of gravitational waves (one of the basic sub-projects at Einstein@Home) helps to solidify Einsteins theory of relativity, many of the numeric conjectures help solidify our understanding of the universe around us. In the case of Collatz, it's one of a set of math tenets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...in_mathematics ) that are theoretical truths, but no proof exists.

[MindCrime]

These are all really good answers, and I appreciate all the feed back. I personally don't believe it will be proven wrong as every integer is a factor of 1,2 or 4 and the way I see it is it's one of those things that look really cool when graphed but on paper seems mundane. A couple of responses were about the program and how it's a 'test bed" for apps! This reason right here is good enough for me to run it, and my computer seems to run it well compared to other projects. I had the resources turned down on it but I'll give it an even share again. I also didn't have both gpus running when I started thinking about what my project priorities were, now I do and Im eager to compare the intel and nvidia gpus.

[Slicker]

Collatz has no purpose other than pure math and for my entertainment. (I really don't find math all that fun, but don't tell those who crunch the project solely because it is "for the math"). On the other hand, I do try to be the first to implement various features such as ATI support, Intel GPU on OS X, OpenCL for CPU, multiple-size WUs matched to the hardware, etc. But, it is a hobby for me and is totally funded by me. None of your tax dollars via government grants are being wasted searching for little green men. IMO, looking for pulsars bazillions of light years away that will never impact us here on Earth is of no more use than solving a math problem with no real world application either. Collatz searches for a single number that will prove the guy who dreamed up the conjecture 80 years ago wrong. Crunch it if you like. Crunch other projects if you like. I do both myself.

Hopefully, when other projects are down, Collatz is still be up. When other projects can't generate enough GPU WUs for the users, Collatz can. When other projects decide that the SETI ratio of GPU to CPU speed is the measurement standard and enable creditNew, Collatz will still be awarding more credit for more work and less credit for less work. So, if you underclock your GPU, you will get less credit than someone who doesn't. If you overclock your CPU, you will get more credit than someone who doesn't. If your 64-bit OS does twice as much work in the same amount of time, it will get double the credit. It will not be "normalized" as it does under creditNew. So, in some ways, it is a stand "against the man"!

Note: There is a development group working on fixing various shortcomings of creditNew and I gave them a long list of items on which to work. They are NOT the standard BOINC development team, so whether DA allows the changes to be merged into the master source code when they finish will be anyone's guess since DA never got anyone's input when he designed it or implemented creditNew. I could go on a real rant about creditNew at this point, but this post is already too long for todays' ADHD youth. ;-)

[cineon_lut]

I should now start another thread "Why DON'T we crunch collatz?"

I'm guilty of losing some GPU power over the last month, but hoping to get back in business soon. HOWEVER we're getting killed on this project. L'AF is smoking everyone on this project now according to FDC, and their Collatz output has them neck and neck with us on daily combined output. So roll call: where are YOU pointing your GPUs?

I'm switching from GPU Grid back to Collatz for a while.

[Mumps]

I have one GPU that can't run any other GPU project than Collatz. So that's where it lives. Other than that, I'm GPU poor...