jhillis (10/20/82)
Dividing a candy bar between n persons by having the first n-1 break off a 1/n size chunk and letting the nth person begin the distribution will not work. The nth person to choose is very likely to be disappointed. A former professor of mine at the Univ of Fla once described a method of dividing something between 3 persons so that all three would certainly be satisfied. The algorithm was somewhat complicated, and without thinking about it, I can't reproduce it. He offered a thousand dollar prize to anyone who could come up with a suitable algorithm for four or more persons so I doubt it's a trivial problem. Jeffrey Hillis BTL-Indian Hill ...ihuxf!jhillis