Have you ever had to split something evenly between a group of people? Chances are that you have, and chances are that when you did, you didn’t use the laws of mathematics to ensure everyone’s complete and mathematically certain satisfaction. Because y’know, that’d be kind of weird. But what if you had? That’s exactly what this presentation looks to explore.
For my talk this semester, I will be discussing the idea of an envy-free cake division protocol. Or, to put it another way, a method of dividing a cake between n people such that every person is satisfied with the piece that they end up with. Is it possible? If it is, is there a single method that can be adopted to any number of people, or does the protocol have to change drastically? You’ll have to stick around to find out. Now, this might not sound like a particularly math heavy talk, and you’d be right. However, it does utilize a lot of the ideas found in mathematical proofs in a very fun and unique way, and I’m very excited to share it with you. See you Wednesday!
Very cool presentation, this reminds me a lot from “cake division” that I did in Math and Politics. (MAT150). I wonder what other methods existed and if they followed suit with MAT150. There was also land-division, and sub-division(sandwiches). I wonder if the same strategies can be applied practically in those departments.
Great presentation! Very easy to understand despite getting confusing real fast with the steps on how to accomplish such division. I still find it funny that one may consider their piece (which could be less than 1/25th of the cake) bigger than the entire cake by the end of the protocol. All I can say is that if we were to share a cake, let’s just agree that all pieces are equal and save us all from the tedious protocol!
Great presentation, Sam! While the process was quite complicated, the ideas behind it make a lot of sense. I am wondering about how many steps this process normally takes, and what factors can make it vary. It is also interesting to think about how this protocol could work with more than 4 people, and how the number of steps would increase if we did so.