A 2008 paper by Haynes et al. described implementing a computer made of E. coli to solve a variant of this problem.
A 2008 paper by Haynes et al. described implementing a computer made of E. coli to solve a variant of this problem. In 1995, Manuel Blum solved a variant of this problem for n inputs with "23n over 14 plus c" operations, where c is a constant. The first algorithm to solve this problem non-trivially showed that when n is greater than 10, a runtime of 5/3 n could be achieved. This problem can be solved trivially using "2n minus 3" operations, since anyone can find the largest item, move it to the top and move it to the bottom in two operations. Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen's most cited paper and Bill Gates's only academic paper both focused on this problem, whose "burnt" variant requires one extra "flip" to solve in the naive solution. For 10 points,name this computer science problem which is often visualized as a sorting problem in which a spatula is used to rearrange the namesake items.
A 2008 paper by Haynes et al. described implementing a computer made of E. coli to solve a variant of this problem.
pancake sorting [accept anything indicating this is the (burnt)  pancake problem; accept  prefix reversal; prompt on sorting problem]