1959/05/01 by Lester R. Ford, Selmer Martin Johnson · 2 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Business, Management and Accounting · #Sports Analytics and Performance #Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing
paper · doi:10.1080/00029890.1959.11989306
openalex publication_date 1959/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Abstract : An improved solution is presented for the problem of finding the smallest number of direct pairwise comparisons which will always suffice to rank n objects according to some transitive characteristic. In his book, Mathematical Snapshots, Steinhaus discusses the problem of ranking n objects according to some transitive characteristic, by means of successive pairwise comparisons. In this paper, the terminology was adopted of a tennis tournament by n players. The problem may be briefly stated: 'What is the smallest number of matches which will always suffice to rank all n players.'