To amuse you while you consider your next move, here is a demonstration of the
Collatz Conjecture for a random integer between 1,000 and 50,000:
20000 → 10000 → 5000 → 2500 → 1250 → 625 → 1876 → 938 → 469 → 1408 → 704 → 352 → 176 → 88 → 44 → 22 → 11 → 34 → 17 → 52 → 26 → 13 → 40 → 20 → 10 → 5 → 16 → 8 → 4 → 2 → 1
(30 steps)