On the Density of Happy Numbers

Abstract

The happy function $H:\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{N}$ sends a positive integer to the sum of the squares of its digits. A number $x$ is said to be happy if the sequence $\{H^n(x){\}}_{n=1}^{\infty }$ eventually reaches one. A basic open question regarding happy numbers is what bounds on the density can be proved. This paper uses probabilistic methods to reduce this problem to experimentally finding suitably large intervals containing a high (or low) density of happy numbers as a subset. Specifically we show that $\bar{d}>.18577$ and $\underline{d}<.1138$. We also prove that the asymptotic density does not exist for several generalizations of happy numbers.

22 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables