• the formatting is horendous

maybe you jiu shi ge songstress

This is the quick and dirty way.
I have no idea why this has so many "Best Practice" votes as this is a very very bad practice.

One way to measure how well algorythms handle large inputs is Big-O notation.
The Big-O notation of a given algorythm says how the size of the input relates to the duration of the execution.
This solution has O(n)=n -> the larger n is, the longer it takes.

The ideal solution to this Problem has O(n)=1
This means that it always takes the same amount of time, no matter how large the input is.

But is a solution with no iterations and no second function even better?

I dont know, but here u have it..

You can read other solutions!

Not from a Codewarrior

Is it possible to learn this power?

But do you know what is even better than number/3 iterations?

Yup, that's right: no iterations!

why are you so diao..

Because it's a negligible constant time optimization, doesn't achieve anything ;-)

why not start with 'i = 3'?