In the Bible, a census is taken of the 12 tribes of Israel:Simeon: 59,300Levi: 22,000Judah: 74,600Issachar: 54,400Joseph: 72,700Benjamin: 35,400Reuben: 46,500Gad: 45,650Asher: 41,500Zebulun: 57,400Dan: 62,700Naphtali: 53,400In the book of Deuteronomy 27: 12-13, the tribes are partitioned into two groups, the first group consisting of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, Benjamin, and the second group consisting of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali.Someone mentioned to me that this particular partition is the optimal in the sense that it minimizes the absolute value of the total number of people in the first group minus the total number of people in the second group. This partition problem is an NP-hard problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_problemIs this calculation correct?
Does the Bible solve an NP-hard problem?
np complete
The partition provided in that passage is not optimal:(Simeon + Levi + Judah + Issachar + Joseph + Benjamin) - (Reuben + Gad + Asher + Zebulun + Dan + Naphtali) = 318400 - 307150 = 11250(Asher + Benjamin + Joseph + Reuben + Simeon + Zebulun) - (Dan + Gad + Issachar + Judah + Levi + Naphtali) = 312800 - 312750 = 50