Ham sandwich theorem

A ham sandwich

The ham sandwich theorem takes its name from the case when n = 3 and the three objects to be bisected are the ingredients of a ham sandwich. Sources differ on whether these three ingredients are two slices of bread and a piece of ham (Peters 1981), bread and cheese and ham (Cairns 1963), or bread and butter and ham (Dubins & Spanier 1961). In two dimensions, the theorem is known as the pancake theorem to refer to the flat nature of the two objects to be bisected by a line (Cairns 1963).

According to Beyer & Zardecki (2004), the earliest known paper about the ham sandwich theorem, specifically the n = 3 case of bisecting three solids with a plane, is by Steinhaus (1938). Beyer and Zardecki's paper includes a translation of the 1938 paper. It attributes the posing of the problem to Hugo Steinhaus, and credits Stefan Banach as the first to solve the problem, by a reduction to the Borsuk–Ulam theorem. The paper poses the problem in two ways: first, formally, as "Is it always possible to bisect three solids, arbitrarily located, with the aid of an appropriate plane?" and second, informally, as "Can we place a piece of ham under a meat cutter so that meat, bone, and fat are cut in halves?" Later, the paper offers a proof of the theorem.

A more modern reference is Stone & Tukey (1942), which is the basis of the name "Stone–Tukey theorem". This paper proves the n-dimensional version of the theorem in a more general setting involving measures. The paper attributes the n = 3 case to Stanislaw Ulam, based on information from a referee; but Beyer & Zardecki (2004) claim that this is incorrect, given Steinhaus's paper, although "Ulam did make a fundamental contribution in proposing" the Borsuk–Ulam theorem.

The two-dimensional variant of the theorem (also known as the pancake theorem) can be proved by an argument which appears in the fair cake-cutting literature (see e.g. Robertson–Webb rotating-knife procedure).

For each angle ${\displaystyle \alpha \in [0,180^{\circ }]}$, we can bisect pancake #1 using a straight line in angle ${\displaystyle \alpha }$ (to see this, translate [move] a straight line in angle ${\displaystyle \alpha }$ from ${\displaystyle -\infty }$ to ${\displaystyle \infty }$; the fraction of pancake #1 covered by the line changes continuously from 0 to 1, so by the intermediate value theorem it must be equal to 1/2 somewhere along the way).

This means that we can take a straight knife, rotate it at every angle ${\displaystyle \alpha \in [0,180^{\circ }]}$ and translate it appropriately for that particular angle, such that pancake #1 is bisected at each angle and corresponding translation.

When the knife is at angle 0, it also cuts pancake #2, but the pieces are probably unequal (if we are lucky and the pieces are equal, we are done). Define the 'positive' side of the knife as the side in which the fraction of pancake #2 is larger. Define ${\displaystyle p(\alpha )}$ as the fraction of pancake #2 at the positive side of the knife. Initially ${\displaystyle p(0)\geq 1/2}$.

When the knife is at angle 180, the knife is upside-down, so ${\displaystyle p(180)\leq 1/2}$. By the intermediate value theorem, there must be an angle in which ${\displaystyle p(\alpha )=1/2}$. Cutting at that angle bisects both pancakes simultaneously.

The ham sandwich theorem can be proved as follows using the Borsuk–Ulam theorem. This proof follows the one described by Steinhaus and others (1938), attributed there to Stefan Banach, for the n = 3 case. In the field of Equivariant topology, this proof would fall under the configuration-space/tests-map paradigm.

Let A₁, A₂, …, A_n denote the n objects that we wish to simultaneously bisect. Let S be the unit (n − 1)-sphere embedded in n-dimensional Euclidean space ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{n}}$, centered at the origin. For each point p on the surface of the sphere S, we can define a continuum of oriented affine hyperplanes (not necessarily centred at 0) perpendicular to the (normal) vector from the origin to p, with the "positive side" of each hyperplane defined as the side pointed to by that vector (i.e. it is a choice of orientation). By the intermediate value theorem, every family of such hyperplanes contains at least one hyperplane that bisects the bounded object A_n: at one extreme translation, no volume of A_n is on the positive side, and at the other extreme translation, all of A_n's volume is on the positive side, so in between there must be a translation that has half of A_n's volume on the positive side. If there is more than one such hyperplane in the family, we can pick one canonically by choosing the midpoint of the interval of translations for which A_n is bisected. Thus we obtain, for each point p on the sphere S, a hyperplane π(p) that is perpendicular to the vector from the origin to p and that bisects A_n.

Now we define a function f from the (n − 1)-sphere S to (n − 1)-dimensional Euclidean space ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{n-1}}$ as follows:

f(p) = (vol of A₁ on the positive side of π(p), vol of A₂ on the positive side of π(p), …, vol of A_n−1 on the positive side of π(p)).

This function f is continuous. By the Borsuk–Ulam theorem, there are antipodal points p and q on the sphere S such that f(p) = f(q). Antipodal points p and q correspond to hyperplanes π(p) and π(q) that are equal except that they have opposite positive sides. Thus, f(p) = f(q) means that the volume of A_i is the same on the positive and negative side of π(p) (or π(q)), for i = 1, 2, …, n−1. Thus, π(p) (or π(q)) is the desired ham sandwich cut that simultaneously bisects the volumes of A₁, A₂, …, A_n.

In measure theory, Stone & Tukey (1942) proved two more general forms of the ham sandwich theorem. Both versions concern the bisection of n subsets X₁, X₂, …, X_n of a common set X, where X has a Carathéodory outer measure and each X_i has finite outer measure.

Their first general formulation is as follows: for any suitably restricted real function ${\displaystyle f\colon S^{n}\times X\to \mathbb {R} }$, there is a point p of the n-sphere Sⁿ such that the surface f(s,x) = 0, dividing X into f(s,x) < 0 and f(s,x) > 0, simultaneously bisects the outer measure of X₁, X₂, …, X_n. The proof is again a reduction to the Borsuk-Ulam theorem. This theorem generalizes the standard ham sandwich theorem by letting f(s,x) = s₀ + s₁x₁ + … + s_nx_n.

Their second formulation is as follows: for any n + 1 measurable functions f₀, f₁, …, f_n over X that are linearly independent over any subset of X of positive measure, there is a linear combination f = a₀f₀ + a₁f₁ + … + a_nf_n such that the surface f(x) = 0, dividing X into f(x) < 0 and f(x) > 0, simultaneously bisects the outer measure of X₁, X₂, …, X_n. This theorem generalizes the standard ham sandwich theorem by letting f₀(x) = 1 and letting f_i(x), for i > 0, be the i-th coordinate of x.

A ham-sandwich cut of eight red points and seven blue points in the plane.

In discrete geometry and computational geometry, the ham sandwich theorem usually refers to the special case in which each of the sets being divided is a finite set of points. Here the relevant measure is the counting measure, which simply counts the number of points on either side of the hyperplane. In two dimensions, the theorem can be stated as follows:

For a finite set of points in the plane, each colored "red" or "blue", there is a line that simultaneously bisects the red points and bisects the blue points, that is, the number of red points on either side of the line is equal and the number of blue points on either side of the line is equal.

There is an exceptional case when points lie on the line. In this situation, we count each of these points as either being on one side, on the other, or on neither side of the line (possibly depending on the point), i.e. "bisecting" in fact means that each side contains less than half of the total number of points. This exceptional case is actually required for the theorem to hold, of course when the number of red points or the number of blue is odd, but also in specific configurations with even numbers of points, for instance when all the points lie on the same line and the two colors are separated from each other (i.e. colors don't alternate along the line). A situation where the numbers of points on each side cannot match each other is provided by adding an extra point out of the line in the previous configuration.

In computational geometry, this ham sandwich theorem leads to a computational problem, the ham sandwich problem. In two dimensions, the problem is this: given a finite set of n points in the plane, each colored "red" or "blue", find a ham sandwich cut for them. First, Megiddo (1985) described an algorithm for the special, separated case. Here all red points are on one side of some line and all blue points are on the other side, a situation where there is a unique ham sandwich cut, which Megiddo could find in linear time. Later, Edelsbrunner & Waupotitsch (1986) gave an algorithm for the general two-dimensional case; the running time of their algorithm is O(n log n), where the symbol O indicates the use of Big O notation. Finally, Lo & Steiger (1990) found an optimal O(n)-time algorithm. This algorithm was extended to higher dimensions by Lo, Matoušek & Steiger (1994) where the running time is ${\displaystyle o(n^{d-1})}$. Given d sets of points in general position in d-dimensional space, the algorithm computes a (d−1)-dimensional hyperplane that has an equal number of points of each of the sets in both of its half-spaces, i.e., a ham-sandwich cut for the given points. If d is a part of the input, then no polynomial time algorithm is expected to exist, as if the points are on a moment curve, the problem becomes equivalent to necklace splitting, which is PPA-complete.

A linear-time algorithm that area-bisects two disjoint convex polygons is described by Stojmenovíc (1991).

The original theorem works for at most n collections, where n is the number of dimensions. If we want to bisect a larger number of collections without going to higher dimensions, we can use, instead of a hyperplane, an algebraic surface of degree k, i.e., an (n−1)–dimensional surface defined by a polynomial function of degree k:

Given ${\displaystyle {\binom {k+n}{n}}-1}$ measures in an n–dimensional space, there exists an algebraic surface of degree k which bisects them all. (Smith & Wormald (1998)).

This generalization is proved by mapping the n–dimensional plane into a ${\displaystyle {\binom {k+n}{n}}-1}$ dimensional plane, and then applying the original theorem. For example, for n = 2 and k = 2, the 2–dimensional plane is mapped to a 5–dimensional plane via:

(x, y) → (x, y, x², y², xy).

• Exact division

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• Weisstein, Eric W. "Ham Sandwich Theorem". MathWorld.
• ham sandwich theorem on the Earliest known uses of some of the words of mathematics
• Ham Sandwich Cuts by Danielle MacNevin
• An interactive 2D demonstration