Stable Roommates Problem

Stable Roommates Problem

In mathematics, especially in the fields of game theory and combinatorics, the stable roommate problem (SRP) is the problem of finding a stable matching — a matching in which there is no pair of elements, each from a different matched set, where each member of the pair prefers the other to their match. This is different from the stable marriage problem in that the stable roommates problem does not require that a set is broken up into male and female subsets. Any person can prefer anyone in the same set.

It is commonly stated as:

In a given instance of the Stable Roommates problem (SRP), each of 2n participants ranks the others in strict order of preference. A matching is a set of n disjoint (unordered) pairs of participants. A matching M in an instance of SRP is stable if there are no two participants x and y, each of whom prefers the other to his partner in M. Such a pair is said to block M, or to be a blocking pair with respect to M.

Read more about Stable Roommates Problem:  Solution, Algorithm

Famous quotes containing the words stable and/or problem:

    Man is not merely the sum of his masks. Behind the shifting face of personality is a hard nugget of self, a genetic gift.... The self is malleable but elastic, snapping back to its original shape like a rubber band. Mental illness is no myth, as some have claimed. It is a disturbance in our sense of possession of a stable inner self that survives its personae.
    Camille Paglia (b. 1947)

    Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
    Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)