No you didn't misunderstand, I think. I thought there were some values that went on forever!
edit: however we could consider the weaker definition of "forever", and consider there are some outliers that go on "for a long time" per post title, probing structure with these loops and spokes. :D
There probably are some very large values that go on forever. It's interesting how the structure of numbers must change at some point. Seemingly just based on magnitude, but in huge scales, some kind of density of structures related to factors builds up and eventually hits a critical point. And "island of forever". Collatz island, above what we've tested. It will be cool to discover that. I wonder how big it is? Probably hundreds of millions of decimal digits. But it's likely dense enough that if you randomly search and land on the island, you probably have a good chance.
