Halvening by pouring into another vessel -- the historical development of the problem (Q2825752)

The author studies the historical development from a problem of mathematical entertainment starting from its first appearance in 1179, amplified through Renaissance publications and Bachet de Méziriac's book \textit{Problèmes plaisants et délectables} (1612) on mathematical entertainment. In its original form the problem is, given a full vessel containing 8 and two empty vessels of volumes exactly 5 and 3 (without further gradations) to fill two vessels with exactly 4 using only the given three vessels. The author discusses and corrects earlier attempts at determining the conditions of solvability of the generalized problems and gives a complete sufficient (but not quite necessary) answer.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 1321.01006].