There is a remarkable connection between the maximum clique number and the Lagrangian of a graph given by T. S. Motzkin and E.G. Straus in 1965. This connection and its extensions were successfully employed in optimization to provide heuristics for t
he maximum clique number in graphs. It is useful in practice if similar results hold for hypergraphs. In this paper, we explore evidences that the Lagrangian of a 3-uniform hypergraph is related to the order of its maximum cliques when the number of edges of the hypergraph is in certain range. In particular, we present some results about a conjecture introduced by Y. Peng and C. Zhao (2012) and describe a combinatorial algorithm that can be used to check the validity of the conjecture.
