<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.math.hmc.edu&#x2F;~su&#x2F;fairdivision&#x2F;theory.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.math.hmc.edu&#x2F;~su&#x2F;fairdivision&#x2F;theory.html</a><p>Or more specifically, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Envy-free_cake-cutting" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Envy-free_cake-cutting</a><p>On a tangential note, something that&#x27;s always bothered me about write-ups of &quot;envy-free&quot; division is that they assume a couple of things I don&#x27;t think are true:<p>- That someone cutting a cake always executes exactly the cut they planned.<p>- That once the cake has been divided, no one will experience envy because their piece is worth, to them, at least their &quot;fair share&quot; of the total.<p>Take the classic example of envy-free division of one cake among two people. The solution is simple enough that most people understand it instantly: person A divides the cake into two portions however they please, and person B then selects one of those portions, A receiving the other. Everyone will agree that this is intuitively fair. But it&#x27;s certainly <i>not</i> fair for either of the two reasons I dispute -- A might still envy the portion of the cake that went to B, imagining a different world where the entire cake was theirs... or A might slip up with the knife and create one portion which is obviously better than the other portion, which B then chooses.<p>Rather, I think the benefits of envy-free division come from two other points:<p>- The parties involved agree beforehand that the process is fair. This requires them to be able to understand it, which is easy for the two-person division and quite difficult for more than two.<p>- Instead of assuming that division goes off without a hitch, we can observe that if you receive a portion you&#x27;re unhappy with, it&#x27;s because <i>you messed up</i>. The blame falls on you rather than someone else.