Monthly Archives: April 2013

Taking balls away: Oz’ Version

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Gil Kalai

This post is based on a comment by Oz to our question about balls with two colors: “There is an interesting (and more difficult) variation I once heard but can’t recall where: You have a box with n red balls … Continue reading →

Posted in Guest blogger, Probability, Test your intuition | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Answer to test your intuition (18)

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Gil Kalai

You have a box with n red balls and n blue balls. You take out balls one by one at random until left only with balls of the same color. How many balls will be left (as a function of n)? … Continue reading →

Posted in Probability, Test your intuition | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Itai Ashlagi, Yashodhan Kanoria, and Jacob Leshno: What a Difference an Additional Man makes?

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Gil Kalai

We are considering the stable marriage theorem. Suppose that there are n men and n women. If the preferences are random and men are proposing, what is the likely average women’s rank of their husbands, and what is the likely average … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Games, Probability, Test your intuition | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Andrei

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Gil Kalai

Andrei Zelevinsky passed away a week ago on April 10, 2013, shortly after turning sixty. Andrei was a great mathematician and a great person. I first met him in a combinatorics conference in Stockholm 1989. This was the first major … Continue reading →

Posted in Algebra, Combinatorics, Obituary | Tagged | 5 Comments

The Mystery Piano-Player at the Mittag-Leffler Institute

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Gil Kalai

In a previous post I told you about my Mittag-Leffler 2005 experience, and challenged you, readers, to discover the identity of a mysterious piano player. Coming from Yale, I was jet-lagged, an experience which already worked for me once in 1991 … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Poetry | Tagged | 7 Comments

QSTART

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Gil Kalai

  Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Foundations’ views on quantum information Inauguration conference for the Quantum Information Science Center (QISC), Hebrew university of Jerusalem Update: The news of our conference have made it to a big-league blog. Update (July 2013): QStart … Continue reading →

Posted in Applied mathematics, Computer Science and Optimization, Conferences, Physics | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Test Your Intuition (19): The Advantage of the Proposers in the Stable Matching Algorithm

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Gil Kalai

Stable mariage The Gale-Shapley stable matching theorem and the algorithm. GALE-SHAPLEY THEOREM Consider a society of n men and n women and suppose that every man [and every woman] have a preference (linear) relation on the women [men] he [she] knows. Then … Continue reading →

Posted in Combinatorics, Games, Probability, Test your intuition | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Test Your Intuition (18): How many balls will be left when only one color remains?

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Gil Kalai

(Thanks to Itai Benjamini and Ronen Eldan.) Test (quickly) your intuition:  You have a box with n red balls and n blue balls. You take out balls one by one at random until left only with balls of the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Probability, Test your intuition | 27 Comments