this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 11 points 11 hours ago (5 children)

Ok but like how do you know it's 1/3 of the apple without any other tools.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 points 2 hours ago

What's funny is that you've actually stumbled onto an entire problem that's studied quite heavily. I remembered a Numberphile video about this. The problem is called "envy-free cake splitting". It's pretty straightforward. A split is envy-free if no one believes someone else got more than them. For three people this was figured out in 1960 and you can read about it here. It has been solved for N participants as well and you can read about the general problem here.

For two people, it's obvious. One splits and one chooses. The first person is incentivized to make it even because they don't know which they'll get.

I was going to give a summary of the process for three people but it's too much to explain succinctly. Just check the article I posted lol.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

it is a magical long sword of apple slicing (+5 damage and THAC0 against apples, +1 otherwise)

[–] blarth@thelemmy.club 11 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Let’s not go too deep on this alright

[–] ghen@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Cut first, choose last. It's as fair as you can get when eyeballing it

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

Only works with two people. For three you use Selfridge-Conway procedure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridge%E2%80%93Conway_procedure) which uses up to five cuts.