Look And Say
March 15, 2011
The “Look and Say” sequence, Sloane number A005150, begins 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, 13112221, 1113213211, …. Each term is constructed from its predecessor by stating the frequency and number of each group of like digits. For instance, the term after 1211 is “one 1, one 2, and two 1s”, or 111221. This sequence was studied by the British mathematician John Horton Conway, and has some fascinating properties; see MathWorld or follow the references at Sloane’s if you are interested.
Your task is to write a program to compute the look and say sequence. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
Programming Praxis 