Cutting cake into a slice of life | Science

I was raised in a small coastal town in eastern China by two kind and hardworking parents, both employed as ordinary office workers. Despite their diligence, my parents rarely saw career advancement. They seemed to be overlooked partly as a result of their personal humility and partly because of the complex interpersonal pressures of their workplaces. As I listened to them discuss how internal politics influenced promotions and resource allocation, I became fascinated by the question of how “fair” decisions are made when a finite pie, such as limited promotion opportunities, must be divided. Although I did not yet know the formal term for it, the seed of interest in distributional fairness—what game theorists call “cakecutting”—was planted during my teenage years.