Programming Praxis

Regular readers of this blog know of my affinity for recreational mathematics, and today’s exercise is an example of that.

We looked at happy numbers in a previous exercise. Recently, Fermat’s Library re-published a proof by Arthur Porges, first published in the American Mathematical Monthly in 1945, that the trajectory of the sequence of summing the squares of the digits of a number always ends in 1 (a Happy Number) or a set of eight digits 4, 16, 37, 58, 89, 145, 42, 20 (a Sad Number). So, we look at this task again:

You are given a positive integer. Split the number into its base-ten digits, square each digit, and sum the squares. Repeat until you reach 1 (a Happy Number) or enter a loop (a Sad Number). Return the sequence thus generated.

For instance, 19 is a happy number, with sequence 19, 82, 68, 100, 1, while 18 is a sad number, with sequence 18, 65, 61, 37, 58, 89, 145, 42, 20, 4, 16, 37, …

Your task is to compute the sequence described above for a given n. 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.

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