Old and new moving-knife schemes (Q1903417)

Many schemes for dividing up a cake, which different people may value parts of differently, have been proposed over the last 50 years. Several of these schemes involve one or more knives that can move continuously across the cake. Ten constructive moving-knife procedures for dividing up a cake among three or more people, some of which are new and simpler than earlier procedures, are analyzed. All these procedures satisfy the property of proportionality, which ensures each of \(n\) people at least \(1/n\) of the cake (as each values it); others satisfy the stronger property of envyfreeness, which ensures each person of a largest piece. While proportional procedures exist for any \(n\), the envy-free produces apply to only three people. However, the simplicity of some of the new three-person procedures recently led to the discovery of an envy-free procedure for four people.