An IMO inspired problem
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This problem from IMO 1988 is said to be one of the most elegant ones in functional equations. Problem : The function $f$ is defined on the set of all positive integers as follows: begin{align} f(1) = 1, f(3) &= 3, f(2n) = f(n), \ f(4n+1) &= 2f(2n+1) - f(n), \ f(4n+3) &= 3 f(2n+1) - 2f(n) end{align} Find the number of $n$ with $f(n) = n, 1 leq n leq 1988$. The main idea towards the solution is realizing that these conditions stand for the fact that $f(n)$ just reverses the digits in the binary representation of the number $n$. So, essentially the solution is finding the number of binary pallindromes $leq 1988_{10}$. My question is the following : How to reformulate the problem so that $f(n)$ reverses the digits of $n$ in its ternary representation. Or even better, can we reformulate it for a