Quick Gossiping by Conference Calls
Ákos Seress · SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics · 1988
There are n persons. Each knows a different item of information. They communicate by k-conference calls, i.e., k persons participate in each conversation. Our goal is to give a sequence of calls subject to the fact that everyone hears each gossip exactly once; moreover, the number of calls is as small as possible. Appropriate sequences of conversations do not exist for all n; we give calling schemes for all feasible n’s, with finitely many exceptions, subject to the fact that the number of calls is a linear function of n.