Eliminating Envy


Tuesday, October 5, 2004
2:00p.m., Room 304

G. Michael Guy
University of Georgia

Abstract: What do the following situations have in common: Pirates returning from a night of raiding townsfolk, Victorious countries following a war of conquest, Your 5th birthday party? Give up? In each situation there are things which must be divided amongst a group of "deserving" parties. Who gets what? The process by which this is decided is often called "Cake Division". We will discuss several aspects of "Cake Division" and explain why naive solutions create a (possibly dangerous) situation of envy. We will discuss complete solutions to this problem which avoid envy for the case when there are only 2 or 3 "deserving" parties and indicate the complexity which arises when we consider more than 3.

This will be a very elementary talk which I hope everyone will find as interesting as I do. Feel free to invite undergrads and bring your friends and anyone else you find loitering in the halls.