Splitting in two

The seminar will present a non-technical introduction to the idea of “splitting”.  For example, imagine you wish to split a class of students into two groups, a higher-ability group and a lower-ability group, and then teach each separately.  How should you do this?  What does the optimal “split” look like?  The talk will present a solution to this problem based on the idea of tension.  After this, an approach to the problem from the perspective of voting theory will be presented.  The talk will explain some central ideas from voting theory, including the idea of a “characterisation theorem”.  A solution to the “splitting” problem from the perspective of voting theory will be presented.

The talk will be informal and non-mathematical.  It will describe a (work-in-progress) research collaboration between economists, mathematicians and computer scientists.

This seminar is one of a series of seminars in the 2016 Whitaker Ideas Forum.  Dr Piggins will be representing the Group Decision Making Research Cluster.