Finding the stopping times or steps for positive integers in the Collatz conjecture using a formula

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Is it possible to find a closed-form $a_n$ for some positive integers and use another formula to find the number of steps for all of those integers? If so, can you find multiple closed forms? For example, let us say you have $a_n=2^{n}$ (doesn't have to actually be this) and have another equation/s that could generate all the steps for each positive integer of that form. Is this possible?