Reply To: Maths
Merry Christmas! Last year Matt Parker implemented a secret santa protocol with some other maths people over the internet: determine who is buying a gift for whom without a central authority and without revealing this information to anyone except the gifter. The ideal protocol should prevent people buying gifts for themselves, prevent multiple cycles of gift buyers, make it impossible for any participant to cheat, and be simple enough to do without the aid of a computer. Last year’s protocol did not entirely succeed. Here’s a sequel from Tom Murphy: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4pG8_bWpmaE
Hannah Fry has some interesting things to say about secret santa in this video (2016): https://youtube.com/watch?v=5kC5k5QBqcc