hossainzarif's blog

What are the stories of some commonly used names in Codeforces problems?
By hossainzarif, history, 3 years ago, In English

Something like Berland State University and some other common names.

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3 years ago, # |
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I always see the name Polycarp in div-3 contests although I have no idea why.

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3 years ago, # |
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Also in most game theory problems, there are Alice and Bob. In Educational Rounds, Nastya, Vasiya etc. are commonly used. Really curious about the back story of them if there is any (specially Alice ans Bob as I've seen them in lot of other oj).

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    Alice, Bob -> A, B?

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    I've also seen the names Alice and Bob in some math olympiad problems related to game theory, so it seems that they are the most common names in all types of game theory problems. I have no idea about the backstory, though

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    Alice and Bob are also used in cryptography as two people sending messages to each other. I'm not sure if the convention started in cryptography or game theory first.

    The convention is useful because alphabetically you can tell who is first, and also they have different genders so it's easy to distinguish them with pronouns.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      It seems that... this convention started in cryptography first.

      The Alice and Bob characters were invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems". Subsequently, they have become common archetypes in many scientific and engineering fields, such as quantum cryptography, game theory and physics. (source)

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    I've seen Alice and Bob in math problems too.

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3 years ago, # |
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Baby Ehab (& its XOR)

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3 years ago, # |
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We want Ram and Shayam in next cf round

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3 years ago, # |
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Vasya and Petya and their variety of problems!

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3 years ago, # |
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Berland and Bitland are popular cities on Codeforces

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3 years ago, # |
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Dima

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3 years ago, # |
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Something + Tree, for any tree problem. 100% authentic

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3 years ago, # |
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Different variations of word "good" for subarray/subsegment description.

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3 years ago, # |
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At least Codeforces has various beautiful names instead of only "Chef" in Codechef xD.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    Don't forget Chefina ;)

    That's what motivates the problem in the first place, him trying to impress her.

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3 years ago, # |
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Alice and Bob playing a game

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3 years ago, # |
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I also wonder why most CP problems have some "background stories" not directly related to the problems.

This seems so weird to me when I started CP.

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3 years ago, # |
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Some names are names of author's itself like Ehab and Kuroni

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
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    But, we know the stories there. But, here we're missing the story of Berland University, Polycarp, Monocarp, Biteland, Vasya petya and many more.

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3 years ago, # |
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Yet Another + a previous problem title in Codeforces. Perfect match.

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