Monday, November 27, 2006
I know that im destined to be an economics major when I get excited about things like these, (seen on Sunday's edition of the Star-Ledger):
"Imagine, for example, a cake with thick icing around the edges and sprinkles clustered at one end. Cutting it down the middle wont be the best solution if one person prefers sprinkles and the other prefers extra icing.
Now, a group of scholars has discovered a better way to cut the cake."
"In their new paper, titled 'Better Ways to Cut a Cake,' Jones, Brams and Christian Kamler, an economist at the University of Graz in Austria, tackle head-on the problem of dividing something composed of parts that are valued differently.
By using a process they call 'surplus procedure', a cake... can be cut in such a way that each person is guaranteed at least half of what he or she wants most, plus an additional piece."
"Imagine a rectangular sheet cake. Jones said two people dividing the cake would be required to mark the cake vertically. If they value the whole cake equally, they each draw a line that divides the cake in half.
If they value one part of the cake more than another, they zero in on the area they desire most and draw the line in a way that divides that area in half. In this way, each person will get 50 percent of what he or she most wants.
The area between the two marks is called the surplus, which is then divided so that each person gets a little something extra.
It's not always so simple, of course, and Jones and the other authors have come up with a set of mathematical equations that will quantify exactly how much each person values the cake and precisely where and how the surplus will be divided.
But each person should be equally satisfied in the end, the paper argues.
Now that mathematicians have dispensed with cake-cutting, they are moving on to another mouth-watering subject - pies"
I just love how economics makes everyday life so complicated, yet in an absolutely logical manner. :)
he rocked the party at 10:25 PM |
