Pancake sorting

Pancake sorting is a variation of the sorting problem in which the only allowed operation is to reverse the elements of some "prefix" of the sequence. Unlike a traditional sorting algorithm, which attempts to sort with the least comparisons possible, the goal is to sort the sequence in as few reversals as possible. This operation can be visualized by thinking of a stack of pancakes in which one is allowed to take the top "k" pancakes and flip them.

The theoretically fastest algorithm has been shown to lie between (17/16)"n" and (5/3)"n" complexity, but the exact value is not known.

The simplest pancake sorting algorithm requires at most 2"n"−3 flips. In this algorithm, a variation of selection sort, we bring the largest pancake not yet sorted to the top with one flip, and then take it down to its final position with one more, then repeat this for the remaining pancakes. Note that we do not count the time needed to find the largest pancake, only the number of flips; if we wished to create a real machine to execute this algorithm in linear time, it would have to both perform prefix reversal (flips) and be able to find the maximum of a range of consecutive numbers in constant time.

In a more difficult variation called the Burnt Pancake Problem, the bottom of each pancake in the pile is burnt, and the sort must be completed with the burnt side of every pancake down. The above simplistic algorithm also works for this problem, but some faster algorithms do not. In 2008, a group of undergraduates built a bacterial computer that can solve a simple example of the burnt pancake problem by programming "E. coli" to flip segments of DNA which are analogous to burnt pancakes. DNA has an orientation (5' and 3') and an order (promoter before coding). The bacteria report when they have solved the problem by becoming antibiotic resistant.

Although seen more often as an educational device, pancake sorting also appears in applications in parallel processor networks, in which it can provide an effective routing algorithm between processors.

The problem can be considered notable in cultural trivia, as the only well-known paper ever written by Microsoft Chairman and billionaire Bill Gates (as William Gates), entitled "Bounds for Sorting by Prefix Reversal" and published in 1979, describes an efficient algorithm for pancake sorting. In addition, the most notable paper published by "Futurama" co-creator David X. Cohen (as David S. Cohen) concerned the burnt pancake problem. Their collaborators were Christos Papadimitriou (then at Harvard, now at Berkeley) and Manuel Blum (then at Berkeley, now at Carnegie Mellon University), respectively.

On September 17, 2008, a team of researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas led by Founders Professor Hal Sudborough announced the acceptance by the journal "Theoretical Computer Science" of a more efficient algorithm for pancake sorting than the one proposed by Gates and Papadimitriou.The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences:
* [http://www.research.att.com/cgi-bin/access.cgi/as/njas/sequences/eisA.cgi?Anum=A058986 Sloane's A058986] - maximum number of flips
* [http://www.research.att.com/cgi-bin/access.cgi/as/njas/sequences/eisA.cgi?Anum=A067607 Sloane's A067607] - number of stacks requiring the above maximum number of flips
* [http://www.research.att.com/cgi-bin/access.cgi/as/njas/sequences/eisA.cgi?Anum=A078941 Sloane's A078941] - maximum number of flips for a "burnt" stack
* [http://www.research.att.com/cgi-bin/access.cgi/as/njas/sequences/eisA.cgi?Anum=A078942 Sloane's A078942] - the number of flips for a sorted "burnt-side-on-top" stack
* [http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/A092113 Sloane's A092113] - the above triangle, read by rows

References

* Gates, W. and Papadimitriou, C. [http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~christos/papers/Bounds%20For%20Sorting%20By%20Prefix%20Reversal.pdf "Bounds for Sorting by Prefix Reversal."] "Discrete Mathematics". 27, 47-57, 1979.
* Cohen D.S. and Blum, M. "On the problem of sorting burnt pancakes." "Discrete Applied Mathematics". 61, 105-120, 1995.

External links

* [http://www.cut-the-knot.org/SimpleGames/Flipper.shtml Cut-the-Knot: Flipping pancakes puzzle] , including a Java applet for the pancake problem and some discussion.
* [http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~west/openp/pancake.html Douglas B. West's "The Pancake Problems"]
* [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PancakeSorting.html Pancake sorting - from Mathworld]
* [http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/Seis.html The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences]
* [http://www.jbioleng.org/content/2/1/8 Engineering bacteria to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem]
* [http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/kahaynes/FAMU_talk/Living_computer.swf Animation explaining the bacterial computer that can solve the burnt pancake problem.]