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How To Share a Cake Over the Internet

Posted by timothy on from the first-you-divide-it-into-bits dept.

mikejuk writes "The problem to be solved sounds trivial — cut up a cake so that each person thinks they get a fair share. This classical problem gets even more difficult if the 'players' can't all see what is going on at the same time — for example because they are negotiating via the internet. Now there is an asynchronous algorithm that is guaranteed to be fair and it all depends on using an encrypted auction. The new algorithm is simple and easy to use, and might be the solution to any number of difficult situations where people need to share things so that everyone comes away happy."

5 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Right.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Cake is a Lie

    1. Re:Right.. by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 3, Funny

      Riiiiight... There is no cake!

      Fucking matrix again...

      --
      Who did what now?
  2. Re:Just cut the pieces into equal portions?! by Cinder6 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If the players can't see what's being done (as per TFS), then the following method should work perfectly:

    -(BOOL)isSliceFair:(Slice *)slice {
            return YES;
    }

    Related: http://xkcd.com/221/

    --
    If you can't convince them, convict them.
  3. Re:Give an Even Better Algorithm by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Funny

    What I really want is algorithm that allows me to have my cake and eat it too [wikipedia.org].

    Easy one. Buy two cakes. qed

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  4. Re:analogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    And what resource isn't finite?

    Human stupidity.