See how the Ackermann function works!
I implemented the two argument Ackermann function in Python and added a print for each recursive call so you can see what's going on. Just clone this repo (or even copy the script into your own file), navigate to the script, and run python3 ackermann.py m n
, where m
and n
are the two nonnegative arguments to the Ackermann function. For python3 ackermann.py 1 2
, you should see
% python3 ackermann.py 1 2
(1, 2)
(1, 1)
(1, 0)
(0, 1)
(0, 2)
(0, 3)
ack(1, 2) = 4
Warning: the Ackermann function is famous because it gives computers a headache. Expect a RecursionError
when running ackermann.py
with m
> 3. n
can go approx two orders of magnitude higher.
Enjoy!