How to cut a cake, mathematically.

Have you ever wondered if there is abetter way to make a decision bout a highly sensitive topic? Peace in the middle east? Settlement of the Kashmir region? What if there was a way to frame these questions so they made more sense?

The way you can cut a cake is the same underlying rational that can be used to evaluate these same problems. It is doubtful that a cake would make them go away but it is a step towards figuring out what people value and what they are willing to compromise on to get it.

This problem of what will people trade for a better or desirable outcome can be traced back to pre-judaeic literature. More than 2000 years and only in the last 100 years have we started to find ways to answer it reliably and fairly.

The crux of this video is not the process but anew method that goes from the reasonably recent record of 3 people to a matter of how much time can you dedicate to the matter. A vast improvement and one that can be further refined.

On a day to day basis this information could be applied in figuring out what and who to prioritise or what to offer a colleague in exchange for help. Barring anything else it can be applied practically in cutting a cake.

Relevant links:

Spliddit
http://www.spliddit.org/

A Discrete and Bounded Envy-Free Cake Cutting Protocol for Any Number of Agents
https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.03655

The Mathematics of Cake Cutting
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-mathematics-of-cake-cutting/

How Do Mathematicians Cut Cake?
https://priceonomics.com/how-do-mathematicians-cut-cake/

Cake Cutting
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CakeCutting.html

Wiki: Peace of Westphalia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

Wiki: Partition of India
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

Wiki: Judgment of Solomon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon