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Reminds me of an old puzzle: how to split bread in two parts so no one is upset? Alice splits, Bob chooses the one he wants. If both prefer at least half, Alice
by oleganza 12y ago
Reminds me of an old puzzle: how to split bread in two parts so no one is upset? Alice splits, Bob chooses the one he wants. If both prefer at least half, Alice will try hard to split as close to 50/50 as possible and, most importantly, no one will feel bad because everyone had his say.
- cschmidt 12y agoYes, these are a generalization of "I split, you choose" to more general cases. It is a way of getting an envy-free distribution. It is often called the cake cutting problem. There are some interesting books on the topic... http://www.amazon.com/Cake-Cutting-Algorithms-Fair-You-Can/dp/1568810768 http://www.amazon.com/Cake-Cutting-Algorithms-Fair-You-Can/d...
- arethuza 12y agoAlso "Shotgun clauses" in shareholder agreements - which try and create a last resort mechanism for fairly agreeing on a share price: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_clause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_clause
- oneeyedpigeon 12y agoI always propose this method, but also suggest that the other person does the dividing :)
- watwut 12y agoI want to be the one who chooses. It is humanly impossible to split the bread to two exact parts. Choosing which part is bigger is easy in most cases.
- mturmon 12y agoToss a fair coin to see who cuts and who chooses.