{"title":"《数学松饼——没人想要一小块》,作者:William Gasarch, Erik Metz, Jacob Prinz和Daniel Smolyak,世界科学出版社,2021年,210页,平装,59.99美元。","authors":"Frederic Green","doi":"10.1145/3561064.3561067","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"You have 5 muffins and 3 (as usual) hungry students. They ask that you divide the muffins equitably between them. Do you cut every muffin into 3 parts, and give 5 separate pieces of size 1/3 to each student? Well no, because that's too easy, and more importantly no student wants any piece that's less than a third of a muffin. Can this be done? Indeed it can! It turns out you can guarantee that everyone gets a piece of size at least 5/12. Can everyone be guaranteed a bigger piece than that? Alas, the answer is no. That's the bad news. The good news is that one could write a book about it, and these guys wrote a great one.","PeriodicalId":387985,"journal":{"name":"ACM SIGACT News","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Review of \\\"Mathematical Muffin Morsels - Nobody wants a small piece by William Gasarch, Erik Metz, Jacob Prinz, and Daniel Smolyak World Scientific, 2021 210 pages, Softcover, $59.99.\\\"\",\"authors\":\"Frederic Green\",\"doi\":\"10.1145/3561064.3561067\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"You have 5 muffins and 3 (as usual) hungry students. They ask that you divide the muffins equitably between them. Do you cut every muffin into 3 parts, and give 5 separate pieces of size 1/3 to each student? Well no, because that's too easy, and more importantly no student wants any piece that's less than a third of a muffin. Can this be done? Indeed it can! It turns out you can guarantee that everyone gets a piece of size at least 5/12. Can everyone be guaranteed a bigger piece than that? Alas, the answer is no. That's the bad news. The good news is that one could write a book about it, and these guys wrote a great one.\",\"PeriodicalId\":387985,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"ACM SIGACT News\",\"volume\":\"11 1\",\"pages\":\"0\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-08-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"ACM SIGACT News\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1145/3561064.3561067\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ACM SIGACT News","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3561064.3561067","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of "Mathematical Muffin Morsels - Nobody wants a small piece by William Gasarch, Erik Metz, Jacob Prinz, and Daniel Smolyak World Scientific, 2021 210 pages, Softcover, $59.99."
You have 5 muffins and 3 (as usual) hungry students. They ask that you divide the muffins equitably between them. Do you cut every muffin into 3 parts, and give 5 separate pieces of size 1/3 to each student? Well no, because that's too easy, and more importantly no student wants any piece that's less than a third of a muffin. Can this be done? Indeed it can! It turns out you can guarantee that everyone gets a piece of size at least 5/12. Can everyone be guaranteed a bigger piece than that? Alas, the answer is no. That's the bad news. The good news is that one could write a book about it, and these guys wrote a great one.