In mathematics, a Hofstadter sequence is a member of a family of related integer sequences defined by non-linear recurrence relations.
Sequences presented in Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
The first Hofstadter sequences were described by Douglas Richard Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach. In order of their presentation in chapter III on figures and background (Figure-Figure sequence) and chapter V on recursive structures and processes (remaining sequences), these sequences are:
Hofstadter Figure-Figure sequences
The Hofstadter Figure-Figure (R and S) sequences are a pair of complementary integer sequences defined as follows
with the sequence defined as a strictly increasing series of positive integers not present in . The first few terms of these sequences are
R: 1, 3, 7, 12, 18, 26, 35, 45, 56, 69, 83, 98, 114, 131, 150, 170, 191, 213, 236, 260, ... S: 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, ...
Hofstadter G sequence
The Hofstadter G sequence is defined as follows
The first few terms of this sequence are
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 12, ...
Hofstadter H sequence
The Hofstadter H sequence is defined as follows
The first few terms of this sequence are
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, ...
Hofstadter Female and Male sequences
The Hofstadter Female (F) and Male (M) sequences are defined as follows
The first few terms of these sequences are
F: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 13, ... M: 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, 12, ...
Hofstadter Q sequence
The Hofstadter Q sequence is defined as follows
The first few terms of the sequence are
1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 9, 10, 11, 11, 12, ...
Hofstadter named the terms of the sequence "Q numbers"; thus the Q number of 6 is 4. The presentation of the Q sequence in Hofstadter's book is actually the first known mention of a meta-Fibonacci sequence in literature.
While the terms of the Fibonacci sequence are determined by summing the two preceding terms, the two preceding terms of a Q number determine how far to go back in the Q sequence to find the two terms to be summed. The indices of the summation terms thus depend on the Q sequence itself.
Q(1), the first element of the sequence, is never one of the two terms being added to produce a later element; it is involved only within an index in the calculation of Q(3).
Although the terms of the Q sequence seem to flow chaotically, like many meta-Fibonacci sequences its terms can be grouped into blocks of successive generations. In case of the Q sequence, the k-th generation has 2k members. Furthermore, with g being the generation that a Q number belongs to, the two terms to be summed to calculate the Q number, called its parents, reside by far mostly in generation g − 1 and only a few in generation g − 2, but never in an even older generation.
Most of these findings are empirical observations, since virtually nothing has been proved rigorously about the Q sequence so far. It is specifically unknown if the sequence is well-defined for all n; that is, if the sequence "dies" at some point because its generation rule tries to refer to terms which would conceptually sit left of the first term Q(1).
Generalizations of the Q sequence
Hofstadter–Huber Qr,s(n) family
20 years after Hofstadter first described the Q sequence, he and Greg Huber used the character Q to name the generalization of the Q sequence toward a family of sequences, and renamed the original Q sequence of his book to U sequence.
The original Q sequence is generalized by replacing (n − 1) and (n − 2) by (n − r) and (n − s), respectively.
This leads to the sequence family
where s ≥ 2 and r < s.
With (r,s) = (1,2), the original Q sequence is a member of this family. So far, only three sequences of the family Qr,s are known, namely the U sequence with (r,s) = (1,2) (which is the original Q sequence); the V sequence with (r,s) = (1,4); and the W sequence with (r,s) = (2,4). Only the V sequence, which does not behave as chaotically as the others, is proven not to "die". Similar to the original Q sequence, virtually nothing has been proved rigorously about the W sequence to date.
The first few terms of the V sequence are
1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11, 11, 11, ...
The first few terms of the W sequence are
1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 5, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 9, 9, 13, 11, 9, ...