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Hard no's are fine in the classic stable marriage problem. "Remain single" gets added as an option to each person's preference list, then you can run Gale-Shapl
by likelybear 6y ago
Hard no's are fine in the classic stable marriage problem. "Remain single" gets added as an option to each person's preference list, then you can run Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance more-or-less as normal with each person on the accepting side starting with "remain single".
- klyrs 6y agoThe original formulation of the problem is looking for a bijection / perfect matching. That isn't always possible if "remain single" is an option. I agree with you and your sibling that modifying the problem is possible, but it won't always produce a perfect matching which is what I meant by unsolvable.
- likelybear 6y agoGiven this appears in Gale and Shapley 1962, I'd say it is part of the original formulation (though they do it by saying people are simply not allowed to apply to colleges where they'd be a hard no rather than apply and be rejected). They're looking at stable matchings for college admissions, not perfect matchings.
- klyrs 6y agoFair enough :)