Is there such a thing as a 4-way Merkel tree?
A way of relating partial information not as counterparts, but as hints to a search.
I was going to post is the comp sci boards, but I think this involves patterns more than systems techniques.
There will be win if this doable.
For example, Merkel trees are usually created by concatenating two values, but they can also be created using the XOR operation.
Say you have 4 data sources A, B, C, D and xy means x XOR y.
You can broadcast the root of the tree ABCD (A XOR B) XOR (C XOR D) as a way to retrieve partially available data.
The idea is that if you know AB and ABCD then you get CD for free,.
In a 4-way Merkel tree, knowing the root and one of the four branches gives you the 3 you don't have.
Prime factorization could be one way to do it.
The branches could also represent ranges for values rather than the values, revealing the values less ambiguously as you find more of the branches.
The real fun begins when you have 6 ways the four pieces can appear:
AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD
If the 4-way Merkel can be generalized to n-way then by permutations we have geometric performance increases.
Halps, me Anon Kenobi.
There will many straws to drink the big milkshake if this works.