ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem

Well kiddo, have you ever played a game of matching with cards? You know, where you have to match the pairs of cards with the same picture.

Now imagine we have two sets of cards with different pictures on them. Let's say one set has fruits like apples, bananas, and cherries, and the other has colors like red, blue, and green. We want to match each fruit with a color.

But here's the catch: each fruit has a different weight, and it takes more effort to transport heavier fruits. Also, each color has a different cost, so it's more expensive to transport colors that are farther away.

That's where the Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem comes in. It's like a complicated matching game where we have to figure out the best way to match the fruits with the colors while minimizing the total cost of transportation.

To solve this problem, we use something called a transportation matrix. It's a table that shows all of the possible ways we can match each fruit with each color, along with the corresponding cost of transportation.

Then, we use a fancy algorithm (like a set of instructions) to find the best possible combination of matches that minimizes the total cost. This algorithm is called the Monge-Kantorovich algorithm.

Once we have the best possible matches, we can use them to transport the fruits to their corresponding colors. And voila! We've solved the Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem.

So, in summary, the Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem is like a complicated matching game where we have to figure out the best way to transport objects based on their weight and distance, using a fancy algorithm called the Monge-Kantorovich algorithm.