The scientist-philosopher Douglas Hofstadter presents an interesting single-seeded

sequence H in his book Gdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. It is

generated by the recurrence relation,

f[n]=n-f[f[f[n-1]]] where f[0]=0 (1)

Working it out one can see that it takes the form: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7,

7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17

If we connect f[n] \rightarrow n in (1) then we get a tree structure which

simulates a specific pattern of succession and duplication (Figure 1).

Hofstader_H_treeFigure 1

As we mentioned before, we only got to read Hofstadters book briefly when we first
came across it. Hence, we did not have the chance to take in all that was discussed
in it. However, it seeded our own explorations along the lines he has proposed in
the book. Thus, in that period we discovered for ourselves a two-seeded sequence
generated by the recurrence relation,

f[n]=n-f[f[f[n-2]]], where f[1]=f[2]=1 (2)

This, while similar in from to the above recurrence relation, produces a different
sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18, 18, 18

Our sequence (2) is related to Hofstadters H sequence in that adjacent

duplications in his H are replaced by one singleton and a triplication in ours.

As we have described before, a convenient method for visualizing sequences such as

this is to rectify them: They increase linearly with a constant slope m. Hence,
we find that slope and use f[n]-n\cdot m to render the sequence along the x-axis.
For many common sequences m=\tfrac{1}{2} works. However, during our experimentation
with the sequence (2) (illustrated in Figure 11 in the previous article) it was
obvious that m>.5. Hence, we took the arithmetic mean of \tfrac{f[n]}{n} for large
n and obtained m \approx 0.682, which served as the required rectification factor.
Notably, the same value of m applied for the H-sequence and we could accordingly
rectify it (Figure 2)

Hofstader_HFigure 2

Similarly, during our explorations of two other two-seeded sequences (See previous
article) we discovered that their rectification factor m=\tfrac{1}{\phi}, where
\phi is the Golden Ratio:

f[n]=n-f[f[n-1]], where f[1]=f[2]=1 (3)

f[n]=f[f[f[n-1]]]+f[n-f[f[n-1]]], where f[1]=f[2]=1 (4)

Since, (3) in particular resembles H and our above sequence (2) we wondered if we
could similarly get a precise expression for their shared m. We noted that in the
case of the doubly nested recurrence relation (3) its rectification factor
m=\tfrac{1}{\phi} was the first root of the quadratic x^2+x-1=0. For the triply
nested recurrence relation (4) we noted that its rectification factor m=\tfrac{1}
{\phi} was the root of the cubic x^3-2x+1. Thus, we realized that a connection
exists between the rectification factors and algebraic numbers. Armed with this
knowledge searched the roots of cubic polynomials to get the rectification factors
for H and our sequence (2). The real root of x^3+x-1=0, x=0.6823278 yielded their
required rectification factor. In the case of (3) and (4) the rectification factor
is the reciprocal of the Golden Ratio, which is the convergent of the famous Meru
sequence (known in the west as Fibonacci),
\displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \dfrac{M[n+1]}{M[n]}=\phi

Thus, the rectification factors of the linearly growing two-seeded sequences (3)
and (4) were reciprocals of the convergent of a non-linear sequence M. Notably the
terms of M appear at each level of the tree of these linear sequences (3) and (4);
see Figures 2 and 14 in the previous article. So question arose as to what is the
corresponding non-linear sequence to which the rectification factor m=0.6823278 of
H and (2) is similarly reciprocally related? The answer to this remarkably leads us
to the original cow sequence of the great medieval Hindu mathematician Nryaa,
son of Narasiha.

In his Gaita-kaumudi, Nryaa presents one of the earliest studies to identify a

discrete formula for the ideal population dynamics of an organism which continually
reproduces upon reaching a certain age. He poses the following problem:
prativara gau ste vara-tritayena tarak tasy |
vidvan viati-varai gor ekasy ca santati kathaya ||
Every year a cow gives birth, from its 3rd year, [and so also] her calves.
O scholar, tell, in 20 years [of reproduction] what will be the clan size from one
cow?

He then provides the answer as the following sum of a series:

abds tary abd[a+]on pthak pthak yvad alpat ynti |
tni krama c[a+e]aikdika-vr padni syu ||
Subtract the number of years (when a calf begins giving birth) successively and
separately from the number of years till the remainder becomes less than the
subtractive. Those are numbers for repeated addition once etc in order. The sum of
the summations along with 1 added to the number of years [is the desired number].
Translation as per Ramasubramanian and Srirams interpretation.

Let the sequence dh[n], for dhenu (cow), represent the number of cows in the nth
year. While Nryaa gives the direct formula for the nth term, it can be expressed
in modern terms rather simply by the below recurrence relation for a triply seeded
sequence,

dh[n]=dh[n-1]+dh[n-3], where dh[0]=dh[1]=dh[2]=1 (5)

This sequence goes as, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 13, 19, 28, 41, 60, 88, 129, 189,
277, 406, 595, 872, 1278, 1873, 2745, 4023, 5896, 8641 Thus, the answer for
Nryaas problem with 20 reproductive years is dh[22]=2745.

We note that, just a \phi for the Meru sequence, this sequence too has a convergent
which we will call Nryaas convergent N_c,

\displaystyle \lim_{n \to \infty} \dfrac{dh[n+1]}{dh[n]}= N_c

Investigating this value, we found it to be the only real root of the cubic
equation x^3-x^2-1=0, i.e. N_c=1.4655712319. This result yields the relationship
between the rectification factor m for the Hofstadter H sequence and our sequence
(2) on one hand and the cow sequence of Nryaa on the other: m=\tfrac{1}{N_c}.
Thus, the same reciprocal relationship, which we saw between the Golden ratio, the
convergent of the nonlinear Meru sequence, and the rectification factors of the
linear sequences (3) and (4), is obtained for N_c, the convergent of the dhenu
sequence (5), and the linear sequences H and (2).

Since the Hofstadter H sequence includes all Natural Numbers we ask if there is any
pattern to the occurrence of the dhenu numbers in it. This relation turns out to
be,
f[dh[n]] = dh[n-1]

The same relation also holds for our sequence (2) except that alternately the
values are either dh[n-1] or dh[n-1]+1. A further interesting observation emerges
as we examine these sequences more closely. The sequence (3) with rectification
factor m=\tfrac{1}{\phi} has a fixed bandwidth oscillation (see figure 5 in
previous article). The H sequence and sequence (2) have a similar type of fixed
bandwidth oscillation. Consistent with this, their recurrence relation and that of
sequence (3) resemble each other with one of the terms being directly n itself. In
contrast, sequence (4), which also has the rectification factor m=\tfrac{1}{\phi},
shows increasingly larger loops of the size of the Meru numbers and a fractal
structure. Hence, we asked if there is a similar fractal sequence with m same as H
and sequence (2). Given that in the recurrence relation (4) the two terms
recursively call the sequence with one having a subtraction, n-f[f[n-1]], we looked
for similar sequences and found that the sequence discovered by Mallows has a
comparable structure,