Editing Alice and Bob (section)

===Interactive proof systems===

For [[interactive proof system]]s there are other characters:
{| class="wikitable"
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| ''Arthur'' and ''Merlin''
| Merlin provides answers, and Arthur asks questions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Babai |first1=László |last2=Moran |first2=Shlomo |title=Arthur-Merlin games: A randomized proof system, and a hierarchy of complexity classes |journal=[[Journal of Computer and System Sciences]] |date=April 1988 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=254–276 |doi=10.1016/0022-0000(88)90028-1 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Merlin has unbounded computational ability (like the wizard [[Merlin (wizard)|Merlin]]). In interactive proof systems, Merlin claims the truth of a statement, and Arthur (like [[King Arthur]]), questions him to verify the claim.
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| ''Paul'' and ''Carole''
| Paul asks questions, and Carole provides answers. In the solution of the [[Twenty Questions]] problem,<ref>{{citation |doi=10.1017/S0963548300000080 |last1=Spencer |first1=Joel |author1-link=Joel Spencer |last2=Winkler |first2=Peter |author2-link=Peter Winkler |title=Three Thresholds for a Liar |url=http://math.dartmouth.edu/~pw/papers/3thresh.ps |journal=Combinatorics, Probability and Computing |year=1992 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=81–93|s2cid=45707043 }}</ref> Paul (standing in for [[Paul Erdős]]) asked questions and Carole (an [[anagram]] of "[[oracle]]") answered them. Paul and Carole were also used in [[combinatorial game theory|combinatorial games]], in the roles of pusher and chooser.<ref>{{cite book |last=Muthukrishnan |first=S. |author-link=S. Muthukrishnan (computer scientist) |title=Data Streams: Algorithms and Applications |isbn=978-1-933019-14-7 |publisher=Now Publishers |year=2005 |url=http://algo.research.googlepages.com/eight.ps |page=3 }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
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| ''Arthur'' and ''Bertha''
| Arthur is the "left", "black", or "vertical" player, and Bertha is the "right", "white", or "horizontal" player in a [[combinatorial game theory|combinatorial game]]. Additionally, Arthur, given the same outcome, prefers a game to take the fewest moves, while Bertha prefers a game to take the most moves.<ref>{{Cite book |title=On Numbers and Games |last=Conway |first=John Horton |publisher=CRC Press |year = 2000 |isbn=9781568811277 |pages=71, 175, 176}}</ref>
|}