Question 24
A natural-number machine performs the following operations. If the current number is even, divide it by 2. If it is odd, subtract 1. Continue until the result first reaches 0. Find the smallest input that takes exactly 6 operations.
Example: input 3 gives $3\to 2\to 1\to 0$, which takes 3 operations.
Example: input 3 gives $3\to 2\to 1\to 0$, which takes 3 operations.