Look-And-Say Sequence

What is the Look-And-Say Sequence

The Look-and-Say sequence is a fascinating pattern of numbers where each term is generated by describing the previous term. Starting with the seed value of 1, each subsequent term is obtained by reading off the digits of the previous term and counting the number of consecutive occurrences of each digit. This count is then followed by the digit itself.

For example, the first few terms of the Look-and-Say sequence are: 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, ...

To generate the next term, we start with the previous term (e.g., 312211) and read off the digits: one 3, followed by two 1s, followed by one 2, followed by two 1s. This gives us the next term: 13112221.

The Look-and-Say sequence exhibits fascinating properties and has been studied extensively in mathematics. It is a simple yet intriguing pattern that can be implemented in various programming languages to generate the sequence.